The Maclan's Tooth
by Candelabra
Summary: Because of a tooth, she's landed herself in a bookworld with only one chance of getting back home. Corinnna's been told to change nothing from the books. But her very presence is twisting the plotlines to the point where she may not be able to return ..
1. No Such Thing

**A/N:** Hello. This is a revision, not an update. I decided that some things needed changing --- nothing major! If this is your first time reading, welcome and enjoy, hope it's better now. If you've been following this story for awhile (which I find rather unlikely, considering the amount of reviews) well ... it's a bit different now, may as well reread it. For one thing, I combined the first two chapters!

**Disclaimer (And this will do for the whole thing):** I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters in it. This is FANFICTION, and if you're stupid enough to think that this little fic has anything to do with JKR and other people with rights to Harry Potter ... then ... you're probably also stupid enough to participate in any number of foolish stunts, in which case you should call me so I can get you to ... er, volunteer for some sadistic experiments I've thought up. :)

I do, however, own Corinna, the whole Tooth idea, and the Maclans. MINE ALL MINE! Steal them and I'll ... well ... I'm probably too young to sue, and I don't think I could find out where you live to kill you ... but I could flame you to oblivion and get your account deleted so HAH.

* * *

**The Maclan's Tooth**

**Chapter One: No Such Thing**

It was a rainy, summer day, with a grey sky. No one was outside, and the rain poured down, the soft grey light making the plants turn a brilliantly bright green.

There was someone at a second-floor window in the mansion-like house at the corner. Someone with shoulder-length, silvery hair, and hazel eyes ringed by long, soft, silver lashes.

Corinna Strelar was reading. She was always reading something — at meals, during school, on the bus, in the car. . . The book she was reading at the moment was called The Third Magic. It was nearly finished, and was just at the climax. Corinna gripped the worn cover in her hands as she read, eyes glued to the page.

She'd read it before — several times, in fact — so she knew what would happen. But that didn't matter to her. The book was still exciting.

Minutes passed. She finished the book with a contented sigh, and shut it. She turned away from the window to place it on the table, and went to select another book from the shelves.

Corinna's parents were rather rich, and they lived in a rather large and spacious house. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother a budding actress. They had two servants to do most of the housework, and were generally kind to people — and they made sure Corinna was, too. Sometimes she wished she didn't have such saintly, well-mannered parents. They were so nauseatingly perfect that she almost wanted to puke, some days.

Even worse, she herself was not so entirely selfless as they. While Mr. and Mrs. Strelar would give away all their wealth in an instant to help some poor soul, Corinna valued her house and computer and large amounts of books far too much to do so. The fact that she was more selfish than her parents gnawed hungrily at the back of her mind ever-so-often.

Perhaps it was this that kept her more or less content to live her life out quietly, away from fame. Although she would never admit it, while Corinna loved everything and anything to do with books and adventure and fantasy, she herself was not cut out to be the heroine of any story. If danger came calling, she would run the other way as fast as she could.She was, quite simply, a coward.

Because Corinna, like any true bookworm, lived her life in stories instead of the real world.

At the moment, Corinna was located in the second-floor library. That was where she went for most of the summer — reading, drawing, and reading some more. She took breaks, every now and then, to go out with her (few) friends, or to go camping with her parents, but the majority of her free time was spent seated by the window.

She pulled out The Folk-Keeper, and smiled slightly. Her mother loved this book, and when Corinna was born she named her after the main character. Creepily enough, when Corinna grew older her hair was a silvery blonde, just like the Corinna in the book. But her grandmother's hair had been silver when she was a girl, too, so perhaps it wasn't so surprising. It was still creepy, though.

In fact, she rather liked her hair. It was one of the few things about her appearance that she was proud of. It was unusual, slightly exotic, and eye-catching. Nothing at all like the rest of herself. Her hair could make someone think she was beautiful, if they never really saw her face, which was narrow and pale and had too-dark circles under the eyes.

Corinna sat back down at the window, and looked out. It was so quiet. She loved rainy days like this — everything seemed so peaceful and beautiful. Her parents were at a concert until 4:00, so she would not be bothered — she could just sit and read, all day. She liked doing that. She was not a normal 16-year-old, and likely never would be.

Opening the worn cover she began to read.

Later that day, her parents came home. She heard them come in the door downstairs, and replied in greeting when they called up a hello. But other than that, she did not move. Now she was reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — for about the seventh time.

"Reading all day?" said her father's voice, and she looked up to see him in front of her. He must have crept up behind the shelves for her not to see or hear him — even when she was absorbed in a book, she usually had better observational skills.

"Yes." she replied, going back to her book.

He laughed and took the book from her hands. "Hey!" she yelped.

"Go walk the dog, then you can come have this." he told her. Corinna mock-pouted.

"But it's _raining_!" she protested. It was a stupid reason, she knew. Both of them knew that she would walk the dog, rain or shine, if she wanted to. And they both knew that Mr. Strelar, no matter what Corinna said, would not change his mind. He could be _very_ stubborn about some things, and walking the dog was one of them.

Corinna's father just looked at her. She hung her head in submission.

"Oh, alright." she muttered in fake unhappiness, and walked downstairs to the front door to get her coat on. She considered putting on boots, but decided on sandals instead.

"Dusty! Dusty! Come here, girl!" she called, and her Golden Retriever came running. Corinna clipped the leash onto her collar.

"Come on, we're going for a walk in the park." she said, opening the door and stepping outside with the dog right behind.

Once at the park, Corinna let Dusty off her leash, and the dog raced about in the rain, splashing her with mud. Corinna laughed.

"Dusty, stop it! Mom will kill me if I get these clothes dirty!" She looked down at herself and sighed.

"I guess Mom's gonna kill me." she muttered to herself, smiling slightly. Then she chased after her dog, spraying more mud and dirt on her.

The two of them were a strange sight to see, playing in the park together in the rain, splashing mud on each other. But there was no-one there to see it, as it was too cold and too wet for anyone to be outside.

Suddenly, Dusty ran off into the ravine area of the park. Terrified that she'd get lost, Corinna ran after her.

"Dusty! Dusty, where are you?" she called as she pushed through the bush.

There was a bark from ahead of her, and she sighed with relief. When she reached Dusty, the dog was digging frantically in the mud.

Corinna groaned.

"Arggh . . . _Dusty_." she said, tugging at the dog's collar. Dusty whined and looked up.

"Come on, I think it's time to . . ." Corinna's voice trailed off as she saw something.

"What the heck is that?" she whispered, kneeling down onto her already-ruined jeans. There was something buried in the mud. Was it a bone?

Dusty began digging again, and this time Corinna helped her. It wasn't long before they unearthed the object. She cleaned it in the rain with her fingers.

It was an iridescent pearly-grey-green tooth that was about the size of her thumb. There was a hole drilled in at the wide part, and a piece of leather threaded through it. When Corinna looked closer, she saw that there were little markings carved on it. She couldn't imagine what creature it had come from.

"Wow." she whispered, "It's . . . beautiful." She stroked it, and it suddenly occurred to her that it was an artifact of some sort. To think, she had found a memoire of the distant past, from some long ago civilization! Her eyes gleamed at the thought of the riches she could have if she sold it.

_Greedy ..._

She shook her head swiftly, suddenly ashamed of herself. Riches? She didn't need riches. Her family was rich enough. She would give it to a museum of some sort.

_And gain fame instead ..._

Then she thought of something. Leather was a biological material, and would have long since rotted away. This couldn't have been that old, if it was still there, a day at most.

But then, who would bury an object as pretty as this? She had no idea what animal had a tooth as large, shiny and smooth as this. It looked a little like an opal, but not enough. Capiz shell then? It looked very like that, but she was quite certain that capiz shell did not come in a grey-green shade.

She crouched there, holding the tooth, wondering what it was. Dusty whined and tried to sniff the tooth, so Corinna held it out for her. The dog sniffed it, then began licking it.

"Hey, don't!" protested Corinna, pulling it back. She fell backwards, clumsy as she was, throwing out both arms as she did so. The tooth cracked against a stone, and chipped at the tip.

There was a blinding flash of bright-green light, and Corinna, Dusty, and the tooth, all disappeared.

_

* * *

Serwan raced through the hallways of the palace. Several people called to her as she passed, but she did not stop to answer. She had to hurry — there was no time._

_Ardel, a boy she knew that had been accepted into the Guard only a month earlier, called a question to her._

"_I must speak to the Queen!" was all she gave him in reply._

_When she reached the throne-room, she went straight up to her Queen, the Macla_. _She did not stop for ceremony or politeness — if things are urgent, the Queen does not care for manners._

"_Milady!" she gasped, stopping and struggling to catch her breath, "I — I left my Tooth the last time I went to the land of the Earth-People, and someone has found it! A girl, about my age in Earth-years, and — and she broke it! It took her somewhere, I don't know exactly where. I saw it in my Mirror."_

_The people whom the Queen had been attending to were all staring at her in a startled and horrified way. But the Macla_ _was as calm and serene as ever. She stood, her dark-green cloak falling back from her sea-foam coloured dress. She was the only one in their underwater realm to wear such things, retaining a more human form — the rest all kept to the fish-tail and upper torso appearance that men called 'mermaids'._

"_Explain." she said in her grand voice. Serwan floated for a moment, catching her sea-breath._

"_This morning I realized that my Tooth was nowhere to be found, and so I went searching for it in my Mirror. I thought that perhaps I had left it when I last went on the Earth-People's land, and so I searched for it there. I found it_ _by a river where I had come up the day before. But an Earth-girl and her dog had found it before me, and she had it in her hand. She fell, and it broke — I think the tip came off — and it took her somewhere. I couldn't do anything about it, and so I came to you." She spoke more calmly__now that she was in the presence of the_ _Queen. The Macla had that effect on you_ — _you couldn't help but think that everything was going to be okay._

"_Everyone, calm down." said the Queen grandly, and the people who had crowded at the doors to see what was wrong, and who had been murmuring in a shocked way, went silent._

"_Everything will be fine. Serwan — that is your name, right?"_

_Serwan nodded, and the Queen continued, "Serwan, you will find the Earth-girl before she can do harm, and tell her not to change anything from happening. You know what will happen if she does."_

_Serwan and the rest of the Maclans shivered. Too many times they had seen what happened when Earth-Folk went around changing what must happen._

"_You must hurry to find her. Find any clues that you can, and I am granting you the use of the Great Dream-Mirror."_

_The people and Serwan gasped. It was a great privilege to use the Dream-Mirror. Only for the most important things was it to be used._

Then this must be important,_ Serwan realized. It did not make her feel proud at all._

* * *

When the terrible light had faded, Corinna was no longer in the ravine. She was in a forest, yes, but a much different forest. The trees were tall and dark and forbidding, and were spruce and pine and oak — not the little poplars or small, slowly growing spruce trees of the ravine. 

She sat up, and realised that she still held the strange tooth in her hand. She looked at it, and was surprised to see that it was no longer sea-coloured like before, but bright green, and glowing slightly with a soft green light. It was still the same tooth though, with the strange capiz-shell-like shimmer and smoothness.

Dusty was beside her, whining and growling at alternatives at the unfamiliarity of the place. Corinna stood, and looked around. _How on Earth did I get here?_ she wondered, though it was really only for the sake of wondering. She knew how she'd gotten here. The tooth. It seemed plain to her that the now-green tooth had brought her here. By what means, she didn't know. Magic, or something.

Then it struck her. She was assuming the tooth was magic, and magic did not exist, of this she was sure . . . right?

_This forest looks an awful lot like I imagined the Forbidden Forest in Harry Potter to look like, _she thought, then shook her head swiftly. _I must be going crazy if I'm believing that. Harry Potter and Hogwarts and the Forbidden Forest all don't exist. There must be a logical explanation to all this._

Corinna began walking purposefully through the forest. She must have blacked out and fallen down to the bottom of the ravine. She'd get back soon enough.

_But the park doesn't have any oak trees, and I'm certain that tree's an oak. And I can't hear the stream, and there's no slope._

Struggling to keep such thoughts out of her mind, she reached the edge of the trees.

"The _hell?_"

Normally, Corinna was not one to swear. She'd had it firmly ingrained in her mind that swearing was rude and vulgar. But at the moment, in this current situation, she didn't really care.

_Where ... am I!_

For, wherever she stood, it was certainly not the ravine. It was raining, but after that the similarities ended. There was a small hut off to the side of her, and no houses in sight. Just a dirt road, with some signs that Corinna refused to read beside it. But that was nothing compared to what was looming up at her through the curtains of rain across the empty fields.

A castle.

There was a castle in the middle of the fields by an unpleasantly forbidding forest, and there was a hut by said forest, and a lake peeking from behind the castle, and ...

It looked an awful lot like Hogwarts and grounds.

"What the bloody hell's goin' on out 'ere?" said a loud, booming voice, startling a little shriek out of Corinna. She turned slowly, dreading what she knew she would see.

There was a big, black-bearded-and-haired man beside the little house.

"Hagrid?" asked Corinna disbelievingly in a whisper. _No no no no, _her mind chanted, _This is not possible, this is not happening, no ..._

"Yeah, tha's me," he replied, staring at her in a confused way. "Hey, what're you doin' in the Forbidden Fores'? Students aren' allowed in there . . . Wait! It's summer hol'days! Wha's a studen' doin' on Hogwarts grounds in the middle o' summer hol'days?" He stared at her accusingly.

Corinna had never fainted in her life. She'd only read in books what it was like when people fainted. Nevertheless, she was quite certain that she was fainting right now. Her vision was going dim and black, and she felt dizzy.

"Hey, you feelin' okay?" came (dare she call him it?) Hagrid's anxious voice.

"Yep!" she tried to say cheerfully, "Just dandy. I think — I think I'm about to faint, is all."

And she did.

"_I've found it! I found it!" Serwan shouted with joy, "The Earth-child is in the world of one of her books, called Harry Potter."_

"_Really?" said the Queen, who was behind her, watching as the Maclan-girl searched with the mirror._

"_Yes, yes!" she repeated excitedly. But then she frowned._

"_But . . . there's complications. The Tooth was broken, right, when it sent her there, and . . . it's sent her into the past of that world . . ."_

" . . . remains that she knew your name. No muggle could know that, surely. And it appeared that she saw the castle."

"I know, Professor Dumbledore, but . . . there's summat odd abou' her, no denyin' that."

Corinna awoke in a hospital-like bed, clutching something very tightly in her hand. She heard British-sounding voices discussing something (_ ...me?_) close by. One was very familiar. It was Hagrid, most definitely. But who was the other one? It couldn't be _Dumbledore_, could it? Well, chances were if Hagrid was calling him that, he probably was.

Wait. This meant that she was actually _accepting_ the fact that she was really and truly at Hogwarts. No, not a fact, _definitely_ not a fact. Facts were true, and she was certain that whatever was going on was _not_ real and/or true.

She groaned as she tried to figure the whole stupid thing out.

"And I believe the girl is awake." said the voice that she had decided _could not_ be Dumbledore, seeing as he was not real.

Corinna sat up swiftly — too swiftly, because she saw coloured spots in front of her. She rubbed her eyes until her vision cleared, and looked at the three people at the foot of her bed. She noticed that she was in what could pass as the Hogwarts' hospital wing — not that she was, because it _was not real._

If she hadn't been most certain that she _was not_ at Hogwarts, she would have said the people in front of her were Hagrid, Dumbledore, and Madame Pomfrey.

"Ah, my dear girl." said the old man who was _not_ Dumbledore, his bright blue eyes twinkling from behind half-moon spectacles.

Corinna gulped down the dryness in her throat. "Hello." she said nervously.

Someone was missing.

"DUSTY!" she yelped in sudden realisation.

"Dusty?" said the woman who most certainly wasn't Madame Pomfrey, "I assure you, this hospital wing is not dusty in the slightest. It is perfectly clean, and if you believe otherwise then — "

"Oh, not your stupid hospital wing," Corinna interrupted crossly. The woman frowned at her, and she corrected herself hastily, "I mean, er, smart, very smart hospital wing. She's my dog!"

"Oh, her." said _definitely not _Hagrid, "Well, I set 'er up in my cabin, seein' as they don't allow dogs in 'ere. Mighty wunnerful animal, that is, didn' wanta leave yeh! But she settled down righ' enough, after seein' you was bein' looked after. I wish I 'ad a dog, right loyal animals they are." he ended wistfully.

"But you do." said Corinna stupidly. They looked at her, and she cringed at her mistake.

"Eh! No, I don', but I was thinkin' on gettin' one soon." he replied, still staring at her.

_What does he mean, soon? What about Fang?_ Corinna caught herself thinking, before she remembered that this wasn't Hogwarts.

Fang ... what did that remind her of? Of course! The tooth! Where was it?

Something throbbed in her hand, and she looked down. There it was, clenched so tightly in her fist that her knuckles were turning white.

"And what is that you are holding?" asked the man wearing half-moon spectacles, although his expression (while polite) indicated that he knew exactly what it was and was wondering if she did.

Which she most certainly didn't.

"Um ... a tooth."

The other two looked at her oddly. Dumbledore — the man — looked at her for a moment with an indecipherable expression on his face.

"Hagrid, Poppy, please wait outside for a bit." he said, without taking his gaze off Corinna. They gave him a quick glance, but acquiesced

"What is your name, child?" he asked once they'd left and shut the door.

"Corinna. Corinna Strelar." she replied.

"And where do you live?"

"Winnipeg, Manitoba. That's in Canada." she added hastily.

He nodded, and was silent for a moment. Then he held out his hand.

"If I may ...?"

She stared at it for a moment, before she realized he was asking for the tooth. She reached to give it to him, but a strange, electric shock ran through her. She gasped, and he frowned in concern.

"Um, no you may not, I guess ..." she muttered, a bit embarrassed. "Sorry." She chanced a glance at him, to find he had settled a thoughtful gaze on her.

"Of course," he murmured, mostly to himself it seemed. "That was foolish of me. I ought not to have tried and parted you from it."

She blinked at him. _Uh ... what?_

"Do you know what that is?" he asked instead, gesturing to the tooth she still held.

She shook her head. "My dog dug it up when I was taking her for a walk."

"Ah." he said, "And what did you do to it?"

"Nothing!" she said. He just looked at her. "Well . . . I kinda tripped, and it cracked against something. I think I broke it, just a little."

"That would explain ..." He trailed off into silence, and Corinna fought the sudden urge to glare at him. _A little less cryptic, if you please!_

"Erm . . . do you — do you think you could tell me what it is?" She asked at last, tentatively. After all, she didn't want to anger him. For all she knew he was some pervert that ...

_Oh, come on. Dumbledore, a pervert?_

_Dumbledore's dead._

_Dumbledore isn't real._

He jumped at the question, as though she'd disturbed his thoughts, thereby distracting her from her own. Then he smiled at her.

"Yes. This is a . . . well, I'm not entirely sure _what_ they're called, but it enables the wearer to travel across worlds and times. It was made by an ancient people, with a secret magic, unknown to wizards. Corinna, am I correct in thinking that you know who I am?"

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit. _(Right now, worrying about vulgarity was not really an option).

It was real? Really, truly ... _real?_

"Yes ..." she said slowly, "You're ... Professor Dumbledore." _Don't laugh at me, don't, I want to be wrong but if I am don't laugh ..._ "You're from Harry Potter. And —" She cut herself off before she could say 'You're dead'. That would likely not go down well. If she truly _had_ been transported to another world ... she must be in the past ...

"Yes, I am Professor Dumbledore. And where have you heard of me?"

_I just said ..._

"Harry Potter," she repeated.

His eyebrows raised slightly. "I'm sorry," he said, "But ... who is Harry Potter?"

Corinna stared at him. _Just how far in the past ... _Well, evidently before book six. He was still alive. But ...

At the back of her mind, a little voice was nagging, _This isn't happening, I'm going insane, this is just a dream, I'm locked up in a mental asylum, this can't be happening, this isn't real ..._

Another, much more practical part of her squashed it. _Shut up, shut up! Just accept whatever he says. Better than nothing. Don't think, just accept ..._

The man ... _Dumbledore_ ... was looking at her, waiting for a response. When she at last gathered herself together to speak, the only thing to come out was, "... how?"

He shook his head, frowning slightly now. "Corinna, what year is this series based in?"

"I dunno, the 1990's or something?"

"Aha," he said, "That explains everything."

"How?" asked Corinna nervously. _Don't say what I think you're going to say, don't say it!_

"Today's date is August 27th, 1977."

There was a moment of silence in which Corinna just stared at him. _Damn, damn, DAMN ... oh please, any and all gods ... no ... this can't be happening ..._

Once more, she gathered herself together in order to speak.

"Oh." she said at last, quietly. _That kinda ... sucks._ A sudden thought, a brief gleam of hope came to her. "So . . . the tooth will bring me back again, though, won't it?"

Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "It should."

_Yes, yes, YES!_

"What do I do with it?" she asked awkwardly, staring at the now grey-green tooth in her hands.

"Wish. Wish to return home."

"Okay . . ." Holding the tooth firmly in her hands, she shut her eyes and wished with all her will-power to go back to where she'd found the tooth.

After a moment she opened her eyes. The tooth was glowing faintly with the same green light, but nothing else had happened.

"Hhm," said Dumbledore, frowning again, "It appears that you are stuck here for the time being."

"_WHAT!"_ she shrieked, and immediately put a hand over her mouth. "Sorry, Dumbledore, but . . . I have to get home! I can't be stuck here!"

_No, no! I can't be here! I have to get back! Mom, Dad, Jacklyn and__Mandy and ..._

"I'm afraid that you are," he replied gravely, "As it seems that the tooth will not work for you. You will remain here at Hogwarts until it does, and until then, I think it would be better if you kept it with you."

"But . . . what . . . how . . ." she said, utterly confused. Dumbledore laid a comforting hand on her arm.

"It's alright. I'm certain that the tooth will eventually send you home. I'm not entirely sure why it won't right now, but rest assured, it will. In the meantime, you are to stay here and school with the sixth-years — you look about that age — and don't tell anyone of what is to come! I am not certain what will happen if you do, but I don't think it will be anything pleasant.

"Well! We'll sort you with the first-years, and say you're a transfer student from a magic school in Canada. That should work. Anyway, I must go now and attend to some matters . . . the staff at least should know the truth . . ."

And so saying, he left. Corinna stared after him, open-mouthed.

_No such thing ... _she thought to herself. _No such thing as magic ... _

In a rare display of angry emotion, she smacked the pillow with her hand. _The hell there isn't!

* * *

_

**A/N:** So? What do you think? Please tell me.  



	2. New Girl

**A/N:** Revision:) Enjoy.

* * *

**Chapter Two: New Girl**

_Serwan turned to the Macla._

"_Who is that man, who knows so much about us?" she asked._

"_Ah. That is Dumbledore, a fine man — for an Earth-person, that is. I have had some contact with him, and have told him a few things about us. He does not know all of our secrets, though — I would not be foolish enough as to tell him everything. He does not know of the Teeth very much. He does not know that the Earth-girl — Corinna, did she say her name was? — will remain in that world and time until the Tooth-tip is found. It is not at its full power without it, as you know, and will not bring her to her home."_

"_But he at least has told her that she cannot change anything." said Serwan. The Queen frowned slightly, looking very like the man in the Mirror._

"_Yes. But I do not know if the child will have the sense to listen. Serwan, before you begin your search for the fragment, I must ask you to contact her and tell her that she _must not_ change anything. Anything at all. Tell her why, too — I find that people are more inclined to listen if they know the reasons for what you are asking."

* * *

_

Over the next five days, Corinna attempted to familiarize herself with the school and grounds. This proved to be ineffective — eventually she gave up and settled on reading the school textbooks. Surprisingly enough, although the texts were about magic and spoke of powerful potions and spells, they were extremely boring.

_I suppose that school can turn even magic into something tedious and annoying,_ she mused one day while trying not to yawn over a debate on whether wizards should update their lighting systems to more practical methods. Lamps, and so on, instead of candles.

_Either way, who cares?_

It was strangely thrilling to wander the halls of a school she'd only ever read about. The disappearing steps caught her many times by surprise, and the moving pictures were able to entertain her for hours on end.

She dined with Professor Dumbledore, a considerably younger Filch, and Professor McGonagall in the Great Hall. The ceiling was extremely disturbing at first, but after the second day she became somewhat used to it — so long as she didn't look up.

It was McGonagall who got her school supplies and took her robe measurements. Ollivander payed a special visit to the castle to give her a wand. To her surprise, when he surveyed her, he told her it would be quite impossible. No wand would take her — she was not a witch and had no magic.

She was, in fact, a Muggle.

It made sense, she supposed. Back home (she winced whenever she thought those words), she'd never displayed any magical powers.But then how could she see the castle? After all, to Muggles it was supposed to appear as a crumbling ruin.

Dumbledore was the one who figured it out, of course. "It's the Tooth," he said (she'd taken to giving it a capital in her thoughts, these days). "It gives you power."

In the end, Ollivander simply made a fake wand out of ordinary wood, with no core. She felt a bit stupid holding the rosewood 9-inch cylinder and having to imagine it was magical. The first time she tried a spell (_Lumos!) _she'd so startled herself with the results (a strange, greenish light that came from the _Tooth_ travelling at lightning speed down her arm and out her wand) that she yelped in shock.

This caused Peeves to come cackling over, forcing her to hide behind a tapestry on the floor which, incidentally, concealed a hidden passageway. If she'd been the adventurous type she would have explored it, and she nearly did, except that the sudden terrifying thought of someone finding her skeletal remains in the depths of Hogwarts years later rather put a damper on it.

Speaking of Peeves, her first encounter of the ghosts of Hogwarts ... was extremely memorable.

She'd been walking through the hallways, looking for a bathroom and hopelessly lost. She'd seen one that had an out-of-order sign and which had an unholy screaming and wailing coming from it (which she took to be Moaning Myrtle's), but passed it up in favour of another, hopefully very close by.

It was just as the problem was becoming an emergency that he appeared — Nearly Headless Nick. Or, as he introduced himself, Sir Nicholas de Pomsy.

Not that she was there to hear it. The moment his silvery-grey body materialized in front of her, she turned around and fled for her life. As luck would have it, by the time she stopped running she was in front of a bathroom. She went inside and did her business without bothering to check if it was guys' or girls'.

Thus it was that she decided to avoid the rest of the ghost population of Hogwarts.

Right now, she was standing outside the doors to the Great Hall, trying desperately to remember what Dumbledore had said about her 'schooling'.

She would participate in all practical classes and such, but would simply fake tests and quizzes. It was funny to think that she was allowed to cheat — she had never been much of a cheater before, and generally gotten good marks, but now she was definitely out of her depth.

_But will anyone suspect?_

She had no idea what she would do if anyone discovered her secret. Dumbledore said it was best not to think about 'what if', and just make sure no one figured it out. She hoped to any and all gods or fates or whatever that no one did — but she couldn't help wondering. With brains like Lily and Remus in her year, it seemed almost impossible that no one would ...

And that was another thing. Lily. The Marauders. She would see all of _them_. It was almost like an incredibly cliche fanfic, only worse because it was _real_.

... And better, too, in a way. After all, how many other girls could say that they'd actually _seen_ Sirius Black and James Potter and everyone?

_Well, I can't, either, because I'll be listed as insane if I do ..._

She jerked to attention as she heard Dumbledore's voice announcing the 'new exchange student' through the door. The rest of the school, including the first-years, was already seated in the Great Hall. She'd be making her grand entrance alone._This is it ..._

She took a breath as Professor McGonagall opened the door. If she could've, she would've smiled at the woman — but she was far too nerve-wracked, and she had the feeling it would have come out more as a grimace, anyway.

_I hope I don't fall ..._

She stepped through the doors.

The entire hall turned to look at her. Corinna held back a gasp — it had looked so empty when she'd dined there, alone with the staff, only a few days before. She raisedher head slightly, smoothed her expression, and walked as confidently as she could between two of the House tables.

_Oh, god, don't let me trip ..._

She made her way to the Sorting Hat and its stool. Setting the Hat on her head, she turned and sat, gripping the edges of the stool to stop her hands from trembling.

_My, my, what have we here ..._ said a voice in her head, and she almost jumped. She knew, of course, that it was the hat — but it was still decidedly weird to hear a _hat_ speaking to her ... even though she was in a book-world.

_A Muggle,_ it continued, _and one not from this world. Well. Haven't had one of those in a while._

_You've actually had one before?_ she thought, surprised.

_Yes, but that's nothing to do with you,_ it said firmly.

If she'd been the bold type, she would've growled at it and said, "Well, hurry up and get on with the sorting, then!"

But it appeared she didn't need to — the hat could obviously read her thoughts, and so it continued.

_You're plenty smart. Not so much brave ... and not especially hardworking or honest ... loyal, though, and ... quick-thinking. Cunning. Almost ruthless ... and ambitious ..._

_What?_

The hat's comments surprised and dismayed her — she'd never thought herself to be Slytherin material ... though, really, now that she actually _thought_ about it, she supposed that it would be the ideal house for her.

But she couldn't go there! It was known for having shrewd members ... and there were future Death Eaters there, as well ... and ... it was just too risky. Ravenclaw and Slytherin were definitely out ... but they were really the ones she fit best into.

_Damn._

_If you please, hat,_ she begged. _I can't go into Slytherin. Or Ravenclaw. They're too smart there._

_I agree,_ said the hat, to her surprise. _And so, I must send you to either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor. Which do you prefer?_

She couldn't believe her ears. Was she dreaming? Well, this entire situation was pretty unbelievable ... but ... the hat never let _you_ decide. Did it?

Her reasonable, logical mind said 'Hufflepuff'. Better to go to the House that had the least ties with people in the books. Better to go to the House without Lily and the Marauders.

But ...

Something inside her baulked at the idea of being forced to go to classes with the loyal, honourable Hufflepuffs. Her pride refused to let her be ... _lowered_ to their level (though her reasonable mind told her that the Hufflepuffs were far from contemptible). And there was something ... a little flash of curiosity, really, that wanted to go to Gryffindor. A strange dare-devil notion. She _wanted_ to take a little risk. The whole thing, with her being in another world, was something out of a dream, and some tiny part of her wanted to take what she'd been given and go running away with it.

_I was wrong,_ remarked the hat as it read her thoughts, mildly surprised. _You are brave — but in a different sort of way than most._

_Huh?_ Corinna wasn't sure what it was talking about, but her mind had already been made up. _Please, hat, put me in Gryffindor ..._

_Certainly. _GRYFFINDOR!

As Corinna removed the hat and set it on the stool, making her way over to the table to the (rather absent-minded and impatient) applause of the students, she wondered if she had done the right thing. Maybe she should've just chosen Hufflepuff ... it would have been safer, certainly ...

_Oh well. Too late now, anyway ..._

She sat herself in an empty seat at the edge of the table, isolated. She set her head in her arms on the table, and sighed quietly, as she turned to look at the other students. They were chattering to each other amiably, grumbling over how long it took to get to the feast. A few gave her curious glances (which she carefully avoided), but most were just looking at their plates and waiting for food.

It was not long in coming. Soon everyone was digging into roast potatoes and fried chicken wings and various other foods.

Corinna picked at her food. Usually, she ate very well — perhaps too well, as her mother had pointed out once or twice with a little poke at her stomach — but today ... right now ... her appetite had been lost. She was far more interested in the conversations of other people, and trying to figure out which ones were characters from the books.

For instance, a few seats down the table, there was a girl with auburn hair chattering to her friends. Could it be Lily? Corinna hadn't seen any other girls with such vivid hair colour along the Gryffindor table.

One of the girls saw her staring, and smiled in a friendly way. Corinna jumped and hurriedly shifted her gaze back to the potatoes on her plate.

_Damn ... and now I look desperate for friends ..._

She poked rather miserably at a piece of barbequed chicken with her knife, crushed a potato with her fork.

"Hi! You're the new girl. Corinna, right?" said a voice, breaking into her thoughts. Corinna turned to see a girl with golden-blond hair and sapphire-blue eyes standing beside her. It was the girl who'd smiled at her.

"Great! I'm Sapphire. Sapphire Carlston." She held out her hand, and Corinna shook it warily. Sapphire laughed.

"You don't have to be so shy! Hey, come on, we've all been new _sometime_ in our life."

Corinna gave her a tentative smile as the girl sat. She couldn't recall reading about someone called Sapphire in the books, so it would probably be okay to make friends with her. She wondered who Sapphire was — just a character from Hogwarts that was never written about in the books, perhaps?

"Okay, I'll fill you in on all you need to know about Hogwarts. First things first: Beware of the Slytherins. They're a bad lot. Trust me on this."

Somehow, Corinna didn't feel like telling her that she was actually supposed to be sorted into Slytherin.

"Next, we move onto the Marauders. They're a group of four boys who are the heroes of the school. Well, okay, three of them are," she admitted, "But the other . . . no, not really."

"Who are they?" asked Corinna, playing the ignorant. Well, she was half pretending and half truly curious. She'd never seen the Marauders, nor read much of a description of them in their prime. She was hoping Sapphire would point them out.

"'Kay, first one is James Potter. He used to be the school's biggest playboy, along with his best friend Black."

"'Used to'?" Corinna questioned.

"Yep. Until he found that he dearly loved Lily Evans — that's her over there —" she gestured to the red-head some seats down, who, along with the other girls, waved cheerily at her, " — and gave up all other pursuits in an effort to gain her attention. Unfortunately, he failed. But he hasn't chased any other girls much over the past half-year. Just Lily. Poor her." At this point, Sapphire shook her head in mock sympathy, glancing at the red-head again before snorting with laughter.

"Anyway, and then there's Sirius Black, who is now _the_ most sought-after bachelor in the school. He's a pureblood, comes from an old wizarding family. Apparently he's turned out better than them, though. A bit arrogant, but most of his swooning fans choose to ignore that, as he is _devilishly_ handsome." Sapphire sighed with mock desire, "Those two are also renowned as the biggest pranksters this school has ever had, along with the rest of their group. Most of their pranks fall on Slytherins, like Snape and Algerbery."

Corinna knew who Snape was, of course, but she wondered as to who this Algerbery was. She didn't remembering him or her being mentioned in any of the books. Oh well. The author couldn't have written down _all_ the characters in Hogwarts in the 1970's.

"Then there's Remus Lupin," Sapphire continued, "who's probably the most law-abiding of the lot. He always looks a bit pale, and goes away often — I'm not sure where."

_He's a werewolf going to the Shrieking Shack, _Corinna thought to herself. She felt immensely pleased that she knew something the other girl didn't. Then again, she knew a lot of things the other girl didn't.

_Not the least of which is that half these people will be dead or in Azkaban in about five years._

She ignored that little thought and concentrated on what the other girl was saying.

"And last but not least . . . okay, I take that back, last _and_ least . . ." Sapphire continued. Corinna held in a laugh. " . . . there is Peter Pettigrew. He's kinda a tag-along with the group. He does everything Black and Potter tell him to, and is mostly their look-out when they do pranks — or so everyone says. No one really knows what they do when they set up their pranks. It's because he's so incompetent at magic, though I guess you can't fault him for not trying. He does try, really hard. It's a bit pathetic, really."

Corinna immediately felt sorry for the boy, though she knew that he would grow up to betray everyone.

_Well ... he's not really evil. Just weak, and not very brave._

_Like me._

(If Sapphire had been watching closely, she would've seen Corinna's face pale slightly, her fingers quiver on her utensils, as she realised how alike to the little rat she was)

_I wonder_ _... how did he end up in Gryffindor?_

"And that's the Marauders!" finished Sapphire, making Corinna's attention snap back to her.

"Talking about us?" said a voice, and the two girls turned. Corinna's eyes widened as she saw the owner of the voice — James Potter, with unruly black hair and hazel eyes. Beside him was a boy with black hair and dark eyes that could only be Sirius Black. Beyond him was a sandy-haired boy — could he really be Remus Lupin? He was certainly more healthy-looking than the books had described him, though she supposed it was because he was younger. And bringing up the rear was a small, rather chubby, ratty-looking boy that had to be Peter Pettigrew.

_This. Is really. Happening._ Some small part of her was gaping in amazement and awe, hidden away in the back of her mind, while the rest of her body gave a hesitant little smile. Hopefully, no one could tell just how terrified and shocked she was to see these four boys.

"Yes, actually, I was," Sapphire was retorting, "I was trying to warn the new girl who to stay away from."

"New girl!" said Sirius, stepping forward. He knelt, placed a hand over his heart, and raised another in front of him towards Corinna.

"Fair lady, thou hast captured my heart. Please, give me thine name and hand in marriage. I beg thee!" he said, looking up at her imploringly. Sapphire tutted softly and rolled her eyes. Corinna looked at Sirius. And blinked. Twice.

"Er . . ." she said at last, turning to look at Sapphire quizzically. To her surprise, the girl was now beginning to laugh. She turned back to Sirius, realising that she'd get no answer out of Sapphire.

"Who . . . what are you talking about?" said Corinna at last. She covered her mouth quickly. "Oops! I mean, what . . . what do you mean?"

Remus rolled his eyes and kneed Sirius in the back, effectively pushing his friend over. He stepped forward a bit.

"In normal English, that's 'Hello, what's your name?'." He told Corinna as Sirius groaned on the ground. She hid a snicker.

"Well, then, I'll reply to him in like manner." she said, and turned to the other boy as he picked himself off the ground.

"I, Sir Sirius," she began in an exaggerated English accent, "Am Lady Corinna Strelar, as thou would have known, perhaps, if thou had been listening to Dumbledore's speech. Although I am quite certain that thou would not waste thine precious time in doing something quite as useful as that — thou would most probably much rather think up interesting and no doubt delightfully humiliating new pranks for the Slytherins."

There was a moment in which all stared at her. _Who spiked the juice?_ she wondered, _I'm never like this when I'm just getting to know people!_ Perhaps it was just that dare-devil streak making her act this way.

"O-kay . . ." said Sapphire at last, ignoring the Marauders, "I think you're supposed to giggle and blush, and then shyly say your name."

"Yeah, probably ..." agreed Corinna.

"Hey, how do you know we like pranking the Slytherins?" said Remus suspiciously. Sapphire rolled her eyes.

"That's, like, the first thing I told her!" she said. "Now, go back to your little spot and we'll leave you alone, alright?"

"What if we don't want to leave?" Sirius wanted to know. Sapphire just looked at him.

"James, I think Lily's calling!" said Corinna. James whipped around.

"Really?" he said, and strode off, not bothering to wait for an answer. Rolling their eyes, Sirius and Peter followed him. Remus stayed for a second longer, staring at Corinna strangely.

"What?" she said.

"Oh, just wondering how you knew that James has been in love with Lily for about a year." he replied, smiling slightly.

"That's the second thing Sapphire told me. And I thought you said half-a-year?" Corinna added, rounding on the girl. _I thank the Lord for making me such a quick thinker and keeping me from blushing when I'm lying,_ she thought gratefully.

"Half a year ago he made his thoughts known." she replied, shrugging. Remus turned and left to go sit with his friends. Sapphire turned to Corinna again.

"Now, you are going to eat something. If you turn out to be an anorexic, I will kill you."

"Oh, geez, you're nice." muttered Corinna sarcastically as she helped herself to some more barbequed chicken, smiling slightly. Sapphire heard and laughed again.

"Aren't I?" she said in a teasing voice.

Later, Sapphire introduced her to their dormmates, and they spent the rest of the dinner laughing and chattering about everything but serious matters. They asked her a few questions about where she came from — "Winning-pegs, was it?" said Carolyn White (by far the prettiest, ditziest of them) with a hesitant frown, and Corinna had to concentrate to keep a straight face — but nothing of importance was discussed. Lily Evans (who turned out to be the auburn-haired girl Corinna had spotted earlier) said they would speak more seriously when they were all safe in the dorm room, and nothing could be overheard by prying boys.

Inwardly, Corinna marvelled. She'd never made friends so quickly before! It usually took her weeks to have anyone for her to talk to when she went somewhere new.

_Oh well,_ she thought to herself, _I'm in a book-world! Anything can happen ..._

* * *

"So, whatcha think of the new girl?" asked Sirius of his fellow Marauders farther down the table after they'd left Sapphire and Corinna. 

"Her? Nasty little liar . . . Evans wasn't trying to get my attention . . . damn her . . ." Sirius ignored James bad-tempered grumbling.

"You, Remus?" he said instead.

"She seems nice enough." he said neutrally.

"Yeah ... nice hair ..." Peter said vaguely. Sirius snorted into his drink.

"Like the new transfer student, do we, Pete?"

Peter, to Sirius's everlasting surprise, blushed. "N-no, of course not."

_O-ho, you don't, do you ...? _Sirius smirked to himself. Peter was only saved a merciless teasing by James's interruption.

"Why are we talking about her anyway?" he asked grouchily. "She's nothing compared to the beautiful, delightful Lily-flower . . ."

The other boys rolled their eyes as one.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks for reading. Please review and tell me if there's any mistakes --- I don't have a beta, so if there's any really big glaring problems that should be noticed ... likely I haven't noticed them, in my haste to post this. :)  



	3. Lies, Serwan, and Gryffindor Boys

**A/N:** Chapter Three! Go to the first one for a disclaimer. This one's a bit short ...**  
**

**Chapter Three: Lies, Serwan, and Sleepless Gryffindor Boys**

After the feast, Remus and Lily (the prefects) led everyone up to the Gryffindor room. Though she had read about the castle and visualized its halls several times, Corinna still found the whole place very confusing. She had no idea as to how Harry figured it out so quickly in the first book.

When at last they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, Corinna payed close attention to the password, which turned out to be "Silvarien Red". Corinna found that to be fairly stupid, considering Silvarien wasn't even a word ... oh well. No doubt it had some obscure philosophical meaning ...

The Common Room was slightly different from what Corinna had imagined. It had faded red-and-gold velvet arm-chairs, a fireplace, and various other comforts. There were two stair-cases, leading to the boys' dormitories and the girls' dormitories.

Lily explained whose dormitories were whose for the 1st years and Corinna, then everyone left to get their clothes and such set up.

It was after they were all settled in that the important questions came.

First up, was the blood question.

"It doesn't really matter, to us, at least," a girl called Dorcas Meadows assured her (the name seemed familiar — for some reason Corinna associated her with a nasty ending. She turned her thoughts away from that quite hurriedly). "But the Slytherins and all ... it's best to know if you'll need some protection.

"Er . . . half-blood." said Corinna, feeling the need to be magical on at least _one_ side of the family.

"Why did you transfer?" asked Sapphire, face scrunched up with curiosity.

"Dumbledore didn't tell you?" said Corinna, mind racing. She was good at lying, but not that good!

"No," replied Sophia Summersby, a rather pretty girl with dark-brown hair and deep blue eyes.

"Ah." Corinna said, trying to buy time as she thought of a suitable lie.

"So . . .?" prompted Lily.

"Um . . . well, my Dad died over the summer," said Corinna, thinking quickly, "so my Mom — my Mom's English, she went to school here . . . Mom and I moved to go live with . . . " — she cast around for a name and relation desperately — " . . . My Aunt Fanny. She lives in London, by Greenwich park," she added, thinking that to add a location would make the story more believable, "My Mom said that the memories of living at our old house were too much, too saddening." she finished, feeling pleased with herself. _That's the longest lie I've ever had to think up!_ she thought to herself.

"Oh," said Sapphire in the silence that followed, "Oh, I'm really sorry, Corinna." The other girls offered their condolences, and Corinna did her best to look sad. Even Sophia, who looked as though she suspected everyone of ulterior motives as a rule (_A bit like me in that regard,_ thought Corinna absently) looked suitably subdued.

"How . . . how'd he die?" asked Carolyn. The other girls glared at her. "If you don't mind saying," she added hastily.

"I don't mind," said Corinna, struggling to think of a way for her father to have 'died'. _Crap, I should've said I don't want to talk about it!_ "He . . . he was driving home from work one night, and some idiot drunk guy was driving on the wrong side of the road . . . He got six years for manslaughter, and a two-hundred dollar fine for driving while intoxicated." she finished, and swallowed, blinking her eyes in a fake effort to hold in tears. _There, that should work! Amazing, really, how I come up with these things._

"Oh . . . that's horrible!" said Sapphire, and she put an arm around Corinna in a comforting hug.

"What's a 'car'?" asked Sophia, looking a bit puzzled, "And what are 'dollars'?" Corinna could tell her parents were wizards.

"A car is a thing that Muggles use to get around to places in. And I think a dollar is the Canadian muggle currency." replied Lily.

An awkward silence filled the dorm. "Well, I suppose we should get to sleep, then." said Corinna.

"Yeah, sure . . ." said Dorcas, and the six girls went to get ready for bed.

Long after the other girls' soft, even breathing and snores filled the room, Corinna lay awake, gazing up at the ceiling of her four-poster bed.

_This is so weird, this is so weird!_

How strange was it, really, to be trapped in a book-world? To be trapped in the _past_ of a book-world?

_And in Harry Potter, of all places!_

Of course, she'd often imagined what she would do, should she become trapped in one of her stories. She'd never really thought about Harry Potter or Middle-Earth, considering those to be a bit overdone. It would have been _nice_ to see what Tortall was like, or maybe Discworld ...?

And she'd never thought it would really _happen_. No one did. That was 'impossible'.

And that whole thing where she wasn't supposed to tell people what was supposed to happen. Or change anything. In most of the fanfics she'd read, the entire _point_ of the heroine (or hero, though she had to admit it was usually a girl) being there was to change the storyline.

She usually fell in love with one of the main guy characters, too, but Corinna wasn't even going to think about that.

_I wonder what would happen if I did change something?_

Probably something terrible. She fingered the grey-green tooth that she'd hung around her neck. Dumbledore had said that it would be best if she kept it with her at all times. If she took it off, it was likely she would find herself in the middle of an old ruin, miles from civilization ... or it would look like that. And then what? She probably wouldn't even be able to see the Tooth ... much less get home ...

She shivered. She didn't want to think about things like that.

Instead, she turned her thoughts to Dusty. The faithful dog was being kept at Hagrid's house, for the time being. The two of them got along very well, and Corinna couldn't help but feel slightly jealous of the obvious love that Dusty had for the big half-giant. In the past five days, she had taken every chance she could to go play with Dusty, feed her, see that she was being looked after.

Oh, how she wished they were back home! Dusty would be sleeping on the foot of her bed, the hallway light would be on (dimly, of course), as she was still a little afraid of the dark, and she would be listening to her mother (who was obsessed with the viola and was certain she could learn it) playing her instrument downstairs. She missed the familiar weight of her dog's sleeping form on her feet, the warm certainty that everything would be as it had always been in the morning . . .

_I'm not cut out for adventure,_ she thought sorrowfully. _I don't want to be involved in it. I've always been an observer — why, oh why did I have to get the chance to be a heroine?_

A soft, calming green light reflected on the red curtains. Corinna blinked. She noticed that it seemed to be coming from beneath her chin, and pulled the Tooth out as far as she could to look at it.

It was glowing with a strange green light, as it had when it'd brought her there. But the glow was slightly different. Instead of being fierce and powerful, it was gentle and soothing. Had it, through some strange power, felt her sadness and uncertainty?

She had the vague idea that the thought of a tooth being sentient should disturb her. But ... somehow ... it wasn't creepy at all.

She heard a strain of music. There were voices singing to her in an unknown language, and she heard the gentle, steady thrum of waves in the surf.

_Thank you ..._ she thought drowsily to whoever, whatever it was that was offering her comfort. And at last, lulled by the strange music, she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

As she slept, she dreamed. She was at the bottom of the ocean, standing on the white-sand sea floor. All around her the water was dark-green, gloomy and opaque-seeming. Her hair moved about her, the silver turned green and blue in the strange, dim light from far above.

There was a dark figure in front of her, gliding towards her. As it came into view, Corinna gasped (later, after she woke up, she wondered why she hadn't worried a bit more about being able to breathe so far underwater).

It had long black hair, tinged green in the strange light . . . or was that really just the light? It's skin seemed green, also, and the hands were webbed, with claws at the end of the very long fingers instead of nails. Its face was human enough, except that it looked strangely long, and the ears were long, thin, and reminded her of fish-fins.

What truly unsettled her, though, were the eyes. They were black, completely black, the irises taking up the entire eye like an animal's, with no white.

It floated rather than stood, because it had no legs. Instead, there was a long metallic green-blue tail, muscular and powerful.

_Mermaid ..._ The word drifted through Corinna's peaceful, dreaming mind like smoke.

"Who . . . what . . . who are you?" she breathed. The creature smiled slightly, and she saw that it had sharp, pointed teeth, like a fox's.

"My name is Serwan," it said, "And I am a Maclan."

Corinna stared at it blankly. "What?" she said.

"I am Serwan. You have my Tooth."

Suddenly Corinna was paying attention. She was still dreaming, still asleep, but her mind was sharper and more focussed. Almost as though she were awake ... while still sleeping.

_Awake and dreaming ..._ the dreamy part of her murmured.

"Tooth? What about the Tooth?" said her awake-but-not side rather warily.

The creature — Serwan — sighed, her rather creepy smile disappearing, and floated down to sit in a cross-legged position on a rock up to Corinna's waist on the sea-floor.

"Come here," she said, patting the space beside her, "And I will explain as much as I can to you."

Eagerly, Corinna half-swam half-ran over to the rock the creature had gestured to and sat.

"Alright," said Serwan, "I am going to explain to you what is going on.

"My name is Serwan, as I've said. I am a Maclan, what you Earth-People would call an Atlantean ... or maybe, a mermaid. We . . . my people were the ones that found the Teeth. They have the power to take us across worlds and times. On my last journey to the Land of the Earth-People, I left my Tooth by the ravine, where you found it. It was a stupid mistake.

"When you broke the Tooth, it took you here. It would've taken you back to your home when you wished on it — Dumbledore is a very smart Earth-Man, and knows much of our matters, according to the Macla — except that it was broken. As long as it is broken, it will not be able to send you back."

At this, Corinna felt as though she wanted to cry and cheer at the same time. The creature knew what was wrong! But . . . she couldn't fix it.

"Will . . . can you fix the Tooth?" she whispered. She had forgotten that this was a dream — even if she'd remembered, she would have believed every word that the creature said. Too many strange things had happened in the past week for her to disbelieve it.

Serwan sighed again. "I wouldn't be able to, although my queen could. The only problem is, we don't know where it is. It could be anywhere, in any world or time." At Corinna's alarmed expression, she added, hastily, "But I'm sure I'll find it. In time.

"In the meantime, you _must not _change_ anything_."

"Dumbledore told me that already." said Corinna.

"Yes, I know, but we didn't know if you'd follow his advice."

"Why? Why can't I?"

"Because the results would be disastrous for you. You would write yourself into the story."

"_What!_" said Corinna. _Write myself into the story? How would I do that?_

Serwan looked at her for a moment, as though wondering how to tell her.

"If you do anything that makes it so that the story must have you in it to continue, then it will keep you here, regardless of whether or not the Tooth has enough power to bring you to your home. The story is more powerful than anything."

Corinna stared at her blankly.

"For instance," continued Serwan, "If you told James to go save Severus Snape from Remus Lupin in his wolf-form, you would be needed in the story. Right now, you have done nothing that the author has told us has happened, and therefore we can use the Tooth to make it so that you were never here. But the moment you do something that must happen . . . it will be too late, and you will have to remain here until you die.

"Anyway, enough information. It is time for you to truly sleep, now. Goodbye, Corinna Strelar." And Serwan and the rest of the dream-landscape began to swirl away.

"Wait! I . . . what . . ." But it was too late. The Maclan was gone, and Corinna was left to fly through her dreams, not to ponder on the terrible things Serwan had told her until morning.

* * *

"I can't get to sleep." said Sirius in the boys' dorms.

"Well, then, will you shut up so that the rest of us can?" grumbled Remus from his bed.

"Why, of course not!" replied Sirius in a mock-offended voice, "Why-ever would I do you lot a favour? You must all stay awake with me, for I cannot bear the thought that you would be able to sleep while I must stay awake!"

"Sirius?" said a voice from another bed.

"Yes?" he replied, turning to look at Jerry Green, the boy who was speaking.

"Just. Shut. Up. Okay?"

"Nope! Not okay!" said Sirius cheekily.

"Oh, to hell with it," muttered James from the bed to his left. The boy pulled out his wand (which he always kept with him, even when he was sleeping), and wrenched open the bed hangings.

"What?" asked Sirius. Then he noticed the wand. "Oh, no, you are _not_ going to do what I think you are . . ."

"_Silencio!_" cried James triumphantly. The spell hit Sirius in the chest, and he fell back on his bed with a muffled '_thump_', his shouts of outrage unheard because of the Silencing Charm.

"Good one," said Jerry, grinning.

"Yes, great, now can you put one on yourself to _shut up_?" said Remus's tired and grumpy voice. The full moon was in three days, and he was being uncharacteristically snappy to everyone. Not to mention it was one o'clock in the morning, and he was _very_ tired.

And everyone lay back and began to drift off to sleep — everyone except Peter, because he had fallen asleep long ago, despite Sirius's rambling.

* * *

**A/N:** Yeah, sorry about the shortness. Please give me some feedback.  



	4. Breakfast and Classes

**A/N:** Number four ... new and improved version ... Oh, yeah, and a language warning. I'd up the rating, but that might make people think there's sex in it, or something. Which there will most definitely NOT be. Maybe a mention, but ... I'm sure you can all handle the 'F' word and such ...

* * *

**Chapter Four: Breakfast** **and Classes**

_Serwan came back through the Dream Mirror, to where the Macla waited. The Queen looked at her inquiringly._

"_I've done it. I warned her through her dream." She felt excited, despite the danger for the poor human girl locked away in her book. She had been sent to do a Dream-Speaking! She'd never done that — never when it had been important, at least — and she was delighted with the success_

"_Good." said the Queen, apparently not noticing that Serwan was more excited than usual, "Now all we have to do is search for the Tooth piece. Then we can bring her home, and she will never have been there."_

_Serwan nodded, calming herself. "I only hope that the girl will heed my warning."

* * *

_

Then next morning, Corinna was woken up by Sapphire ripping open the curtains and throwing a pillow at her.

"UP!" she shouted, "Up, and down to breakfast lazybones!"

"Erb . . ." groaned Corinna rolling over. "Way . . . too . . . early . . ."

"No it isn't! Come on, hurry up! I want breakfast."

"Well, nobody's stopping you." grumbled Dorcas.

"Don't worry, Sapphire," said Sophie, who was also an early riser, apparently, "I'll go with you!"

"Yay!" said Sapphire. A few minutes later they were gone, and Corinna rolled onto her back again. Sunlight shone through the window, hurting her eyes. She wondered where Sapphire and Sophie got their energy from, and how they had changed out of their pyjamas into the uniform so fast.

Then she remembered — the dream. Serwan telling her about not changing anything, about the Tooth and something about the magic of the story . . .

She shook herself, then decided that that sort of action was easier to do when sitting. She sat up, threw the bed covers off, and stepped out of bed. Then she stood for a moment, waiting for the multi-coloured dots in front of her eyes to disappear before she continued on to the bathroom.

Ten minutes later she was in front of the portrait hole, trying to remember in which direction the Great Hall was. She eventually ended up doing 'eeny miney mo', and was just heading off in the direction she'd picked when someone stepped out of the portrait hole behind her.

"Um . . . Cordelia, was it? Why are you going that way if you want to get to the Great Hall — that is, assuming that you want the Great Hall, of course . . .?"

Corinna halted at the sound of Peter's voice. She turned bright red — she hated looking like a fool, especially in front of someone whom she rather disliked — and turned around.

"I . . . uh," she gulped in the middle of her sentence, like she usually did when embarrassed, "I didn't know which way to go . . ."

"Oh, that's okay," said Peter in a friendly voice, "I'll show you. Must be difficult, being new and all."

"Er . . . yeah." She didn't bother to correct him on the name as he led the way down the hallways to the Great Hall.

_Awk. I'm walking down the halls of Hogwarts. Next to a future traitor._ These thoughts and others like them ran through her mind, but she squashed them. It would not at all do to keep stopping and really _thinking_ about how insane this whole thing really was.

"So . . . where are the other members of your little gang?" she asked curiously when they were nearing the Hall.

"Them? Oh, they're still asleep. Said something about Sirius chattering all night when I asked . . . I don't know why they think he was saying anything, he was dead quiet this morning, not even snoring like he usually is. I wonder if he's even breathing . . ."

Corinna laughed a little, nervously, as they entered the Great Hall. She was holding her breath for some mass turning of heads towards her, the new girl, but there was none. She was a little disappointed for a moment, then quickly and sternly told herself off. She didn't _want _to be the centre of attention.

Peter left to go join a little group of people that he apparently knew, and Corinna wasn't sure if she was supposed to follow him or not. She looked around, wondering if she could find a little seat to herself, when she saw Sapphire and Sophia waving at her from down near the staff table.

"Hi, Cory!" said Sapphire as Corinna sat herself down next to them, feeling half-grateful for their kindness and half-annoyed that they couldn't let her sit by herself.

"Cory?" she asked, making a face.

"Yeah, Cory. That's a cool nick-name." said Sapphire.

"I like Rinna better . . ." remarked Sophia, looking at Corinna with amusement in her eyes — and something else as well. Corinna wasn't sure what it was. A challenge, perhaps? She was uneasy around this girl, who seemed to have more subtleness and shrewdness than the other girls she'd met in Gryffindor. Sophia was too much like herself — she saw too many things the other Gryffindors didn't, and hid her thoughts better than Corinna had seen others do. Could Sophia see the distrust in Corinna's eyes that she saw in hers?

"Cory, Rinna, fine. Whatever floats your boat." replied Corinna, watching Sophia with the same challenge in her eyes behind her amused expression — if she was wrong, and Sophia noticed nothing out of order with her, chances were she wouldn't see that challenge either.

"'Whatever floats your boat?'" asked Sophia, frowning slightly and tilting her head on one side to look at Corinna.

"Yeah. Just a saying I got from one of my friends." replied Corinna absently, picking up the schedule Professor McGonagall had tossed on the table.

"Ah. Cool. Argh, evil professors gave us double Defense first, with the Slytherins." said Sophia, looking at her schedule.

"Is it just me, or do we always get paired with the Slytherins for DADA?" asked Sapphire as she stabbed a sausage with her fork and began to eat it.

"'Dat-ta'?" repeated Corinna, confused.

"Yeah, Dada. It's actually D-A-D-A, but it's quicker to say Dada." explained Sophia in between mouthfuls of a hash-brown.

"Eew, Sophia! Don't talk with your mouth full!" said Sapphire, turning away from the girl, apparently disgusted. Corinna held in a laugh — her friends at her old school acted just like that when she accidentally forgot her manners and spoke with a mouth full of food. She was glad that another girl wasn't perfectly polite and well-mannered at the table, even if said girl scared her.

The remainder of breakfast passed fairly uneventfully. Corinna got a bit of a shock when the morning post came in — "Aigh! It's a tornado of feathers!" A giggle from the other girls. "No, it's just the owls ..." — and there was a bit of an argument (well ... a rather stupid fight) over whether the Marauders deserved their popularity and overall school favour.

Sophia and Lily took the 'they're great big gits that ought to be thrown out on their rear ends _right this minute_ side', while Carolyn and Dorcas (well, mostly Carolyn) insisted that they were alright. Corinna was rather surprised at the amount of loathing that Sophia displayed for the Marauders — she seemed to hate them almost more than Lily.

"Oh, not _again_ Lily!" groaned Carolyn when the girl gave Potter (who had just waved and called a cheery 'Good morning!' to her, interrupting their rather heated debate) an extremely dirty look.

"What?" snapped Lily. "He's such a big-headed ... jerk! Thinks the world belongs to him, beating up on other students ..."

"He's not _that_ bad, Lily," remarked Sapphire, who had taken a place on the sidelines rather than actively join the debate — until this moment, anyway. "At least he's not like the Slytherins ..."

"Yeah ... and you're ruining my dating prospects!" whined Carolyn. Dorcas mock-hit her.

"Yeah, right, like you've got a chance with Potter!"

"He's not who I'm after!"

"You wouldn't want to go after Sirius, either. He's an asshole." said Sophia, cutting up one of her sausages.

"What about you, Sapphire? Do you like the Marauders?" asked Corinna.

"Her?" said Lily, "She flirts with them all the time!"

"Shut up," said Sapphire, flapping her hand at the girl, "You know I don't like them. I just flirt for fun. And practice."

"_Of course_ you do," said Carolyn, "Just like I don't have an obscenely large crush on Sirius."

" — which you shouldn't, since he's an idiot —" interjected Sophia.

" — and you'll never get him anyway." finished Dorcas, laughing into her pumpkin juice.

Corinna had tried some of the stuff and thought it very odd, not at all to her taste. She preferred to stick to water and milk — and orange juice, when she found it.

_What I would give for some good old-fashioned coke ..._

"Really!" Sapphire was protesting, "Anyway, I have my eyes on someone else." She cast a dreamy look towards the Ravenclaw table. Lily snorted into her drink. The snort sounded oddly like "Fabian!"

Carolyn stood up. "You know what, I think I'm gonna go talk to them." she said, and walked towards the boys, flipping her dark, glossy brown hair back as she went.

Lily sighed as she picked up a spoon and dug into her muesli. "She's a great friend, but ever since she got that crush on Sirius last year it's been impossible to stay away from the Marauders." she explained when Corinna looked at her.

"Thank God Sapphire doesn't like any of them," muttered Sophia, prodding at her eggs.

"What did they ever do to you?" asked Corinna, curious.

"Nothing to do with you," snapped the other girl. Corinna drew back in shock, and Sophia immediately put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. It's just ... they get me so pissed off."

"I bet I could think of a charm to send those grumpy's away!" teased Sapphire.

"Yeah, the Cheery Charm or something, right?" said Dorcas. "And if you overdo it, like you usually do with those spells you think up, it'll have her laughing helplessly on the floor."

Laughing and joking, the girls continued their meal.

* * *

"I _still_ don't see why you had to use the Silencing Charm," muttered Sirius bad-temperately from down the table.

"Oh, _do_ shut up, Sirius," said Remus tiredly.

"Hi, Sirius," said someone. Sirius turned to see Carolyn White standing behind him.

"Uh . . . hi, Carolyn," he recovered himself quickly.

"So, what do you have first?"

"DADA." replied Sirius.

"Cool, so do I!"

"So, you wanna . . . be my partner if there's partners, or something?"

"Er . . . sure, why not." said Sirius, thinking it would get rid of her. Unfortunately for him, she pulled out a chair and sat down.

"So, um . . . you doin' anything after class today?"

"No."

"Wanta hang out?"

"Sure, why not . . ."

"Great! I'll see you at three o'clock, then."

And then she left. Sirius, Remus, Peter, and James stared after her.

"Whoa, mate," said James, "First day of school and you've already got a date! Lucky dog . . ."

"I wouldn't call it a date," said Remus, "More like a . . . an appointment?"

Peter, who had been eating throughout the whole thing, looked up and said, "You know, that new girl, Cordelia? She's nice."

"Oho! Wormtail's got a crush!" said Sirius jokingly.

"Corinna." corrected Remus absently as he served himself some sausages.

"What?" James looked at him in confusion.

"Corinna. Her name's Corinna."

"I don't have a crush!" said Peter indignantly, his ears turning pink.

"Well, why'd you bring her into the conversation then?"

"I . . . well, you were talking about girls, and I . . ."

"He likes her," James told Sirius in a stage-whisper. Peter glared at them as they both snickered.

"I don't."

"And why did you remember her name, anyway?" Sirius asked Remus. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Just because I happen to have a good memory for names does not mean I like her or anything."

"I never said you did! But . . . evidently you do, or else you wouldn't have just said that!"

"Oh, shut up," replied Remus wearily, "You know I don't like her. I haven't gone out with a girl since . . . Rose."

There was a sudden silence in the Marauders' section of the table.

"Oh. Right. Sorry, mate. I forgot." said Sirius awkwardly. None of them liked to think of the disaster that had occurred when Remus had gone out with Rose. They'd had to use a memory charm.

"Right," said Peter after a moment, "Um . . . anyone got any ideas for pranks?"

And the serious and awkward atmosphere disappeared as quickly as it had come while the four Marauders planned their first prank of the year.

* * *

Defence Against the Dark Arts was interesting, to say the least. To Corinna's surprise (and horror), the professor turned out to be none other than Macnair — the very Macnair that was a Death Eater.

_Oh. My. God ..._

"Corinna? Are you alright?" asked Sophia when she froze upon spotting the name on the blackboard. "What? Oh. Yes. Yes, of course I'm alright." And she forced her face into a smile. _If he is a spy, I can't do anything,_ she thought.

Thankfully, the entire class passed without much incident. They were given a test that Corinna completely faked. Unfortunately, she had not quite mastered the art of writing with a quill, and ended up spraying ink all over the test.

Hopefully no one noticed. After awhile she began to get the hang of it. _It's kind of like calligraphy ... _

As they left the class, Macnair called out their homework — "Ten-inch essay on the Unforgivable Curses!".

"Stupid old bitch," muttered Sapphire bad-temperedly to Corinna, "Every year we get a new one, and every year they're worse than the last."

"Yeah," said Carolyn from behind, nodding, "I should've just dropped this course — woops!"

She tripped and fell into Corinna, who in turn stumbled forward, smashing into ...

"Algerbery," hissed Sapphire. Lily took in a sharp breath and tugged at Corinna's shoulder.

Too late.

The first impression Corinna got of the infamous Algerbery was that she was one of those skulls you found in old movies about head hunters — scraggly black hair and pasty white skin the colour of bleached bone, and dark, dark circles under eyes heavy with black eyeshadow and eyeliner.

Corinna had known some gothic-looking girls at her old school. They weren't so bad, really — in fact, one of them was a close friend of hers. As a rule, she had nothing against people with too much eye-shadow.

So it was imperative that others understood the instant dislike she took to Algerbery had nothing to do with the girl's appearance.

It was more to do with the fact that, after Corinna fell into her and apologized profusely, Algerbery turned, smacked her hard in the face, and shoved her.

"Get your fat ass out of my face, you fucking bitch," she snarled.

"Hey!" said Sapphire as Lily caught the extremely startled Corinna. "Leave her alone — she's new!"

"You want a fight?"

Sophia tugged at Sapphire's arm, stopping her from responding. "Leave it be." Corinna heard her mutter, "Just move along ..."

Lily helped Corinna to her feet as Algerbery sneered and disappeared into the shifting crowd.

"Are you alright?" she asked. Corinna lifted a hand to the red mark on her cheek.

"Uh ... yeah, I think so."

The shock was beginning to wear off. Directly in its wake came waves of humiliation (the other students had surely taken note of that little outburst!) and hot, vicious anger.

_That little bitch!_

Corinna completely forgot how vulgar and inelegant swearing was as she, Sapphire, Sophia, and Carolyn parted ways with Lily and Dorcas to go on to Divination. The other three chattered nervously, asking her questions, and she replied as civilly as she could, while mentally cursing Algerbery with every name under the sun.

Perhaps she hid her anger well enough that no one noticed. Perhaps they were only worried about what she would think of their school.

But perhaps Sophia, who gave her a few odd, considering glances, saw the hate smouldering behind her eyes, and decided that maybe, just maybe, she should watch this strange new transfer student a little more closely ...

* * *

"_Your task now, Serwan," said the Macla, "Is to search for the Tooth-tip. Go, and bring this with you so you may contact me and the girl at need._

_Serwan looked down at the package the Queen had handed her, and saw that it was a miniature Dream-Mirror. She looked up, aware that this was a great honour. This was one of the Mirrors that had no need of Teeth, of the Queen's magic, because they were made partly with powdered Teeth._

"_Thank you, my Queen," she said sincerely. The Macla smiled._

"_You're welcome, my child, and may you go swiftly to find the Tooth,"

* * *

_

The cozy divination room was very different from what Corinna had expected. There were cozy chairs and big comfy couches, which seemed to go with what she could recall of the books' description, but it was too . . . homy. Fireplace in the corner somewhere, giving off an orange light, crackling wood loud over the teenagers' chatter and laughter. Sensible, new-looking wood tables with place-mats on them. Tall shelves against the wall holding teacups and teapots. The wall itself was a nice light blue colour with a pattern of white-silhouette bunny-rabbits running across it diagonally.

Sapphire, Sophia, and Corinna seated themselves at a table with Carolyn. Corinna was taking out her crystal ball and textbook while Carolyn and the others told her about the school cliques. All concern over the earlier incident with Algerbery appeared to have dissipated.

"That," said Carolyn, pointing at a blonde Ravenclaw girl across the room, "Is Tara Robertson. Smart, I suppose, 'else she wouldn't've gotten into Ravenclaw, but God, she can sure act ditzy sometimes."

"Like you, you mean?" teased Sophia. Carolyn flapped a hand at her. "Shut up!"

"Anyway," Sapphire continued for her, "that's her group, with Ami and Rose. Chantelle and Vera are part of it, too, but they're not in Divination. Rose is the nicest of the bunch, Ami's the bitchiest — of course, nowhere near Heather Algerbery, but she's gettin' there."

"Didn't Rose and Remus go out at some point?" said Carolyn.

"Yeah, they were an item for six months or something, but Remus broke it off. I dunno why."

Corinna nodded, thinking, _Even if I didn't really ask for them to tell me about the entire student population, it's kind of interesting. _For instance, she'd never known that Remus had a girlfriend when he was at Hogwarts. She could guess why he'd broken it off with Rose, though.

"Then there's Fabian and his friends," Sophia nodded towards a dark-haired, muscular looking boy in Ravenclaw, "Who is Potter's rival in Quidditch."

Sapphire sighed and Carolyn nudged her before adding, "And Sirius's in looks." Sophia's expression darkened slightly, but she stopped herself from reacting.

"And Jerry, he's kind of a floater," she continued, "He's welcome at every group and belongs to none." Corinna followed Sophia's gaze to see a boy with light brown hair talking to Fabian at his table.

"So," she said, "What's the teacher like?"

Probably weird and mystical, but still, it couldn't hurt to ask, could it?

"Awesome," said Sapphire to her surprise, "She's always cracking jokes during class, making fun of people. Everyone loves her."

That was completely the opposite of what Corinna was expecting. _Although,_ she supposed, _not all Divination teachers have to be all mystical, like Trelawny, I suppose._

"Where's Dorcas?" she asked.

"She's in Lily's class — failed her Divination ex —"

At that moment, the trapdoor opened with a bang, cutting Sapphire off. A short witch with a completely black robe jumped out, bounded up to the desk and leaped on top, knocking off papers and what looked like a miniature crystal ball, which thunked loudly and rolled a few centimetres when it hit the ground.

"Welcome, my Angels of Death!" she said in a loud, dramatic voice, "Today is the beginning of yet another torturous year! Are you Newt-Class students ready to make prophecies of fear and horror for the first-years?"

When she'd first come in there was instant silence. But at her question, everyone except Corinna shouted with one voice, "Yes Professor Janko!"

The witch nodded. "Good!" And promptly jumped down to sit on her desk, knocking off more papers in the process.

Now Corinna could see her properly. The witch had shoulder-length, straight black hair with bright blue and green streaks in it. Her eyes were dark-green and sparkling with mischief, her skin flawless.

This professor, as Professor Macnair was, was a complete surprise. Though Corinna had dined with the staff earlier, only Filch, Dumbledore, and McGonagall had been there.

Professor Janko scanned the roomful of students. Her gaze stopped on Corinna.

"Aha!" she said and jumped down off the desk (dislodging even more paperwork). "New meat!" She ran over to Corinna, who instinctively shrank back, and lifted her chin. The girl shivered — were those _claws_ she was feeling? She was certain they weren't there before.

"So, little child," murmured the professor, "What is your name and station? Where do you hail from? And what is something interesting about you?"

Students were laughing at Corinna's expression, though they were not unkind laughs.

"Uh, um . . ." said Corinna, "I'm Corinna Strelar. I'm a student. And I come from Winnipeg. And . . . I have silver hair."

Professor Janko nodded. "Ah, yes, I see. Ever seen the Royal Winnipeg Ballet?"

Corinna stared at her. "Uh . . . yes."

"Good on you, then! How was it?"

"Good . . ." Was it just Corinna, or was the professor completely forgetting about the rest of the class? She remained in Professor Janko's grip for a moment more while the potions witch scanned her over with evergreen eyes.

"Love your accent, dearie," said the professor softly, and then, abruptly, she let go of Corinna's chin, making the girl's head drop suddenly. Professor Janko took no notice as she walked back up to the desk, long, wavy black hair streaming out behind her.

Wasn't it straight before?

The professor whirled around to face the class once more. "Corinna Strelar," she boomed, "My name is Kassandra Janko, I am the Divination Teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I was born in London, England, and I am a Metamorphmagus!"

_A meta-what?_ thought Corinna. Then she remembered. _Like Tonks, _she almost said, but she stopped herself just in time.

_Well, that explains it._

"So!" said Professor Janko, "Let us begin! Stare into the depths of the crystal balls and see the future of the person across from you! Will it hold love? Terror? Death? We shall see!"

Laughing, Sapphire pulled out her crystal ball. "Here, Corinna, I'll read your future."

Corinna grinned weakly. _Why in hell did I sign up for divination?_ She was dead terrified of portents for the future and the like, even though Sapphire was unlikely to see anything.

Sapphire stared into the depths of the ball. "I see . . ." she said in a slow and mysterious voice, "I see . . . clouds."

She snorted with laughter, ruining the image, and suddenly broke into song. "I see clouds of white, and skies of blue . . ."

"Shut up," laughed Carolyn, punching her in the arm, "Your voice is terrible."

"Do keep a hold on your terrible voice, Sapphire," said Sophia. Though the words were merely amused, her tone was a bit peeved. "I was getting something."

"_Sure_ you were," said Sapphire.

Corinna watched with a smile on her lips.

"Sapphire, though you may believe your song lovely, the rest of us beg to disagree!" called Fabian Prewett from across the room to the amusement of the rest of the class. Sapphire, instead of calling back some sort of insult or flirtatious comment as Corinna would've expected, blushed beet-red and sank down in her cushy, velvet red chair. Corinna's eyes widened, thinking, _So _that_'s who you like!_

"Ah, be quiet!" laughed Carolyn, "I'd like to hear _you_ sing!"

"Please, no, thank-you," said Professor Janko, walking up to their table. "I don't think any of us deserve that horror. And just what have you accomplished since the beginning of class?"

"Er . . . nothing?" said Sapphire meekly, trying for a guilty smile.

Corinna snorted delicately into her hand with laughter. Professor Janko sighed.

"_I_'ll do it for Corinna, Professor." said Sophia. She glared at the other two, who had dissolved into fits of laughter over some stupid thing.

"Why not, maybe you'll get some work done." replied the professor, a hint of a smile on her lips as she walked away.

"Alright," said Sophia to Corinna, staring down at the crystal ball, "I'm supposed to ask you you're mother's maiden name to do this properly."

"Are you?" asked Corinna, surprised. She didn't remember this from the books. Sophia raised her eyes slowly.

"Of course. Haven't you taken Advanced Divination before?"

"Oh, well, not Advanced," said Corinna, feeling slightly flustered. _Is there really a big difference between Advanced crystal reading and normal?_ "I . . . I forgot to look at my textbook," she added in response to Sophia's curious glance at the text.

"Ah, well . . ." said Sophia, smiling to show she meant no harm.

A friendly smile, Corinna supposed, but there was something wintry about it, something as hard and cold as ice.

"So. What is your mother's maiden name?" asked the other girl.

"Um . . ." _Should I tell her the real one? What could it hurt?_ "Tavela. Annette Tavela."

"Good," said Sophia nodding. She stared into the ball. "Tavela," she whispered, as though trying to keep it in her head for remembering. "Tavela, Tavela. Show me the Daughter of Tavela."

Carolyn and Sapphire were still laughing and joking together, the rest of the classroom was still loud with students chattering to each other, but suddenly Corinna felt she and Sophia and the crystal ball were the only things in the world. She didn't like the feeling at all. Sophia's voice whispered that name, _"Tavela, Tavela,"_ phantomlike, and Corinna reached blindly for her Tooth, wanting its soft reassurance. Her hand nearly grasped it through her robes as Sophia stared at the ball, strange lights reflecting in the other girl's eyes.

Something stopped her from holding the Tooth, though. Something kept her from touching it.

A moment later she realized why.

_It glows green when I hold it!_ _She'd definitely see it._

Shaking slightly, Corinna lowered her hand, and waited for Sophia to finish.

At last the girl did, letting out a sigh and looking up.

"What did you see?" asked Corinna, somewhat nervously — she had not liked at all the way Sophia's eyes gleamed

"Oh, nothing really," replied Sophia, "Just some foggy shapes, nothing certain. Sorry! Looks like I've found out nothing for your future."

"Oh, good," said Corinna, trying not to show the extent of her relief, "As they say, no news can be good news, right?" She laughed slightly. Sophia laughed with her, but her eyes never left Corinna's face, watching, weighing the girl's every move.

Corinna gulped nervously under the examination. "So, uh, I'll . . . I'll look at your future then." She tugged her _Advanced Divination _textbook towards her and opened it to contents.

Then she remembered that she only had to do what Sophia had done. She turned a little red at that and shut the book. She looked up into Sophia's amused, watchful eyes.

"I . . . I, er, forgot. Um. Yeah." She placed her hands on either side of the globe and looked up at Sophia. "Mother's maiden name?" she asked with a smile.

"Hetaran. Melanie Hetaran. She's a quarter-blood." replied Sophia after a moment's pause.

"Oh. Right," said Corinna. _Why tell me?_ She cleared her throat nervously.

"Hetaran," she said quietly, "Hetaran, Hetaran," _How many times? Does it matter? _"Show me the Daughter of Hetaran. Hetaran, Hetaran."

She stared into the billowing fog of the crystal ball. She couldn't help but be drawn into the white depths, staring at the swirling clouds.

After a moment she dragged her gaze away and looked up. Sophia was watching her, a curious expression on her face. "What did you see?" she asked.

"Oh . . . uh, nothing." said Corinna. "Just a bunch of clouds."

"I have a cloudy future, then?" said Sophia, amused.

"Er, yeah. I guess," She smiled weakly.

"And how have we been progressing?" asked the voice of Professor Janko from behind them. Corinna jumped.

"Not very well, professor," said Sophia, "Neither of us could see much."

"Ah, well, it is your first try this year. You'll See soon enough, I suppose . . . Well, if that's enough of your practical — out come your textbooks!" This last said loudly so that the entire classroom could hear.

The class packed away their crystal balls and took out their _Advanced Divination_ textbooks. For the remainder of the class they took notes on how best to decipher the shapes they saw in the crystals.

As they all began to leave the classroom for lunch, Corinna was halted.

"Hold on, dear," called Professor Janko, "Hold on, I want to speak to you. You three can go," she added to Sapphire and the other two. They gave Corinna puzzled glances, to which she shrugged in return. They left, saying they'd save her a seat in the Great Hall.

Corinna approached the professor cautiously, who watched the approaching girl with an indecipherable expression in her eyes.

"Sit," she said, gesturing to the chair in front of her. Corinna sat.

The professor's voice, when she spoke, was quiet. "I know of your . . . condition, shall we call it? And . . . I just wanted you to know . . . if you want to talk to anyone, if you . . . if you need a friend to speak with, I'm here. I won't tell anyone what you tell me."

Corinna stared at her. Was this some trick? What would it accomplish? Her hand itched to hold the tooth, but she stopped herself.

"If you don't want to, of course," added Professor Janko quickly, "Well, I won't make you. But . . . yeah. Anyway. Well. Off to lunch then, hm?" And she stood, smiling. But the smile looked forced, sad almost, Corinna thought as she stood as well and said goodbye.

As she opened the trapdoor and began climbing down, she glanced up at Professor Janko, once. The teacher was looking at her, eyes grey, now, and filled with a deep sorrow and . . . wistfulness?

Corinna looked down again and concentrated on the ladder rungs, thinking about what the professor had offered.

* * *

**A/N:** Woop, that's a long one. Eleven pages, or something ... yeah. Took out the long extra scene with DADA, thought it wasted too much time. Don't want to make them TOO suspicious. And I'd have taken out some of Divination, too, except a) it's important to the storyline and b) I just love Professor Janko. :)  



	5. More Classes

**A/N: **Next one! Enjoy! Review! Please.

* * *

**Chapter Five: More Classes**

_Serwan raised herself out of the water, gasping with shock as Earth-air hit her. She looked up at the cloudy sky and winced, shielding her eyes. She'd forgotten how bright the surface was, so different from the ever-lasting night of the deeps._

_She shook herself slightly. She had a task to do.

* * *

_

"There you are!" said Sapphire as Corinna came up to the Gryffindor table, "Come sit here." She patted the seat of the chair on her left.

"What did Professor Janko want?" asked Sophia.

"Oh . . . just wanted to talk to me about school stuff. You know. Textbooks and how she does things, the like." she replied vaguely.

"Why didn't she just say it with us there?" asked Sapphire.

Corinna shrugged. "So, what's for lunch?"

Lunch was mostly uneventful. The girls were joined by Dorcas, before long.

"Feeling better?" asked Carolyn.

"Good enough to tackle whatever wild creatures we face in Care of Magical Creatures!" replied the other girl. Conversation resumed.

After lunch, they split up — Carolyn and Sophia went on to Muggle Studies, while Sapphire, Dorcas, Lily and Corinna left to go to Care of Magical Creatures.

"Hey, Corinna, do you have a pet?" asked Sapphire as they were walking out to Hagrid's hut, where Care of Magical Creatures classes were usually begun.

"Yeah," replied Corinna, smiling, "Yeah. A dog. Hagrid's keeping her for me — Dumbledore says she's too big for the dorms."

"Did you say you have a dog?" called Sirius from behind them.

Lily narrowed her eyes. "Why are _they_ in every class we're in?" she hissed.

"They weren't in Divination," pointed out Sapphire mildly.

"Neither was I," muttered Lily darkly. "I was stuck in Ancient Runes with them."

"Yeah, I have a dog." said Corinna to Sirius.

"Good on you," he said, "Dogs are wonderful animals."

Corinna grinned. _You'd say that, wouldn't you,_ she thought to herself.

At that moment there was a commotion up ahead, and she whipped around to see Dusty running towards her through the students, barking.

"Dusty!" she gasped, stopping dead. The dog jumped at her, covering her face with enthusiastic licks. Corinna dropped her bags, laughing, and pushed Dusty down. She knelt and stroked the dog.

_Oh my god ..._ She'd missed Dusty, it was true, but this was a bit embarrassing.

"Aw, what a cute dog!" said Sapphire kneeling as well to pet her. Several other people stopped to look at Dusty, including the Marauders. She sniffed them all and accepted all of their pats and head-scratches, wagging her tail enthusiastically.

"Nice dog," commented Sirius. He and James and Peter all stroked Dusty and offered her their hands to sniff. Remus hung back, but Dusty smelled him anyway. Immediately, her hackles rose, and she growled, going from curious to dangerous in seconds.

"Whoa!" said Sapphire, "What's wrong with you?"

Corinna swallowed. She knew exactly what was wrong with Dusty. The dog crept forward until she was in front of Remus, growling all the while.

"What's up, Dusty?" said Corinna, as though puzzled by her dog's behaviour. "It's just Remus."

Dusty stopped growling, and looked up at her, whining.

"Hold out your hand for her to sniff," suggested Sapphire, and Remus tentatively did so. Dusty looked at it, then at Corinna. Slowly, she leaned forward to sniff his proffered fingers. She jerked her head back and began growling in earnest, then moved forward as though about to bite.

"Dusty!" said Corinna, grabbing her by the collar. "I'm sorry," she said, looking up at Remus, "She's not usually like this. I don't know what's . . ."

She trailed off. Remus was staring at the dog with a strange look in his eyes, as though reliving a memory.

"What's this hold up?" shouted an authoritative voice, "We've got a lesson to get on with — come on, now!"

Most of the students dispersed, moving on to Hagrid's hut or to their other classes. Corinna pulled at Dusty's collar and walked to Hagrid's hut, deciding to drop her off with Hagrid.

She glanced back once. Remus and the other Marauders were still standing there. She turned back around just as quickly, wondering what they were doing.

* * *

Remus remained staring into blank space for a few moments. He was suddenly back to last Christmas break. He'd gone with Rose to visit her parents. They rang the doorbell, and a dog began yapping. Rose giggled nervously.

"My Pekingese, Shaya." she said to him. Remus's already frayed nerves were set even more on edge. Dogs usually didn't like him, what with him smelling like a werewolf and all.

Sure enough, when the door opened and little Shaya came running out to meet the guests, she stopped. Rose bent down to stroke her, but Shaya was glaring (as much as a dog can glare) at Remus. She growled.

"Shaya?" said Rose, stopping. "Shaya, what's . . ."

The dog leapt at Remus, who stepped back and nearly fell down the front steps.

"Shaya!" exclaimed Rose's mother, pulling the dog back. Rose stepped forward to steady Remus.

"I'm sorry," she said to him, "Oh, I'm so sorry! She's not usually like this, I don't know what's gotten into her! ..."

Remus shook himself. It was nothing. He didn't need to be having flashbacks about Rose — that was over and done with.

"Hey, mate," said James, "Are you okay?" He patted Remus's back awkwardly. Remus looked up, giving him a forced smile.

"Sure. Just . . . pre-moon stress."

James and Sirius laughed, and the Marauders continued on to Care of Magical Creatures.

* * *

"Alright, class, today will basically be an overview of the course this year."

Professor Kettleburn was a tall man, his dark hair streaked with grey. He appeared to be in his fifties, and his blue-grey eyes were tired and surrounded by sagging flesh, as though he never got enough sleep at night. He was one that Corinna remembered from the books, though he'd never been an actual character.

No one was really paying much attention. In the back, Sirius and James were whispering together (_Probably planning a prank,_ Corinna thought with a smile), while everyone else sat or lay on the ground as the professor proceeded to tell them exactly which creatures they would be studying, when, and which days students _must not skip _unless they wished to fail their exams. Possibly the only ones actually listening were Corinna and Lily, though the former was having difficulty keeping her attention from wandering.

Dorcas and Sapphire were busy passing notes, and Sapphire tossed one onto Corinna's back. The girl jumped and turned around.

"Open it!" mouthed Sapphire, eyes laughing. Lily, alerted by the note hitting her only fellow listener, turned to glare at her. Sapphire ignored her.

Corinna blinked. She'd never passed notes with anyone in her life. Carefully, trying to be inconspicuous and quiet, she unfolded the little square of parchment.

"_Professor Kettleburn is so boring. Don't you think?"_

She stared at it a moment. Pulling out a pen, she wrote a quick reply.

"_Not ... really."_

Then, glancing swiftly at the professor to make sure he was not looking in her direction — he wasn't — she tossed the note towards Sapphire without looking.

There was a barely concealed snigger, and she glanced around. Her eyes widened when she saw that the note had gone barely more than ten centimetres. Dorcas reached forward and grabbed it up to read her reply, and laughed silently. Corinna turned back to the front, suddenly uneasy. Were they going to make fun of her?

A moment later she felt the note hit her back again. Lily glanced at her disapprovingly when she reached to pick it up. She shrugged her shoulders in an apologetic way.

"_D — you're such a bookworm!_

"_S — you're no fun at all. You're just like Lily!"_

Corinna raised her eyebrows. _And what would Lily say to that? _she wondered. She thought better of finding out and instead scribbled a few more sentences.

"_C — but it's a new school. I don't want to miss anything ... what if they do things differently here?"_

She turned around and threw it back, a little harder this time. It went farther, but still did not quite reach the other girls. She looked back towards the teacher with their snickers barely reaching her ears. She hoped they were laughing at the pitiful throw and not her reply, this time.

" ... and we must also study several dangerous creatures throughout the course of the year, although, of course it will be ... dangerous ... I will see if we can find a werewolf to bring in ..."

Corinna just had time to find herself becoming quite offended on the behalf of Remus and the various other unfortunate werewolves in the world (_How can he talk about them as though they're ... animals, just some creature from the wild?)_ when the crumpled piece of parchment flew over her shoulder and into her lap. She jumped and glanced back to see Dorcas cracking up and Sapphire grinning at her. Corinna didn't know if it was a friendly or taunting grin — she'd happily go with the former, though.

"_D — oh, come on. Just take it as it comes. Stand up in the face of the unknown! Laugh at danger! Heheh._

"_S — don't worry. We'll help you get settled in and all ..."_

A hand reached out to grab the note and Corinna looked up, startled into Lily's extremely disapproving face. For a moment she thought she was angry at her, but Lily was glaring beyond her at the other two girls.

"Stop it!" she hissed, "Do you want to get her in trouble on the first day?"

Sapphire smiled back at her. "Don't worry — Kettleburn doesn't care."

"I wouldn't be so sure if —"

"Miss Evans! If you would be so kind as to pay attention and not be chatting while I am trying to speak to you!" Kettleburn's voice rose to reprimand Lily, who turned bright red and turned back around to face him.

"I — " she began then stopped and looked down at the ground. "Sorry, sir," she muttered, face flaming. The rest of the class giggled — _Lily Evans? Chatting during class? As if! — _and even Corinna could not resist letting out a snicker. Lily flashed her a hurt look, and she immediately felt terrible. She considered mouthing sorry to the other girl, but Kettleburn's attention was still focussed in their corner.

Thankfully, James spoke up. "Ah, Evans, shame on you! Chatting on your first day of class! Tsk, tsk ..." He shook his head in mock shame. Lily, who's face had been slowly returning to its original colour, whirled on him, face heating with anger.

"You —"

But Kettleburn had already turned back to James to reprimand him.

Corinna would have said sorry to Lily, and thanked her for looking out for her if the girl had been looking at her. But her attention was focussed on James, boring holes into his head with her eyes. He gave her a cheeky smile, obviously completely ignoring whatever Kettleburn was saying to him. Beside him Sirius pulled an outrageous face at the professor, who promptly took off five points.

The rest of the class passed by without any more incidents. The girls stopped tossing notes at Corinna, perhaps fearing Lily's anger, or maybe accepting that Corinna wanted to listen.

Actually, Corinna spent much of the rest of the class daydreaming. No matter how hard she tried to concentrate on the teacher's (_Professor's _she corrected herself mentally) words, she found her mind slipping away to wander about the clouds far above somewhere.

_I wonder ..._ she thought to herself drowsily, leaning back against the ground on her elbows,_ what would it be like to fly?_

She'd been in an aeroplane once, when she was six years old and visiting her mother's cousins on the West Coast. She remembered little of the trip except for cooing flight attendants and a mass of white that her father told her were clouds far below. They'd been so far up that any fear of heights seemed pointless, as nothing in the world she knew seemed to belong up there.

_But it's not the same as _really_ flying, is it? You don't see people or buildings and such. You don't see much of anything, or feel it ... you don't feel wind rushing past wings like birds do ..._ _you can't really ... fly ..._

She went very, very still, eyes that had previously been blinking closed staring wide-eyed up at the sky.

_But ... I _can_ fly ..._

It had never occurred to her, really, that this could be the chance of the lifetime. She had been focussing so much on the bad that she hadn't really grasped the concept of being able to do what people could in the books. She hadn't realized that — with this tooth — she could do ... magic.

_Oh ... my God. I can ... I ... I can ride a broom. And go in the air. Like an actual witch!_

It took all of her willpower not to jump up in the middle of class and start screaming like a lunatic. _I can fly! I CAN FLY!_

She almost giggled at herself. _I sound like some sort of really cheesy commercial ..._

"Corinna ... Corinna ..."

A hand waved in front of her face. She blinked and looked up to see Sapphire standing over her, laughing.

"You were _listening_? Yeah, right ... come on, we've got History of Magic to go to ... ugh ... and then supper ..."

Corinna sighed and stood.

"Daydreaming!" accused Dorcas jokingly. "About a special someone, hhm?"

Corinna smiled sheepishly. "Nah, just thinking about how to skip class next time."

Lily caught up with them. "Corinna, I expected better of you!" She shook her head in mock shame and linked arms with Dorcas.

"Sorry ..."

"I was kidding!" said Lily, surprised and amused.

"I ... meant about ..." Corinna struggled to explain what she meant, but Lily and Dorcas had already set off for the castle, skipping and singing. She looked after them, openmouthed in shock.

Sapphire handed Corinna her bags, laughing again as she led the way back. "Yeah, don't let Lily fool you. She's only stuck-up and law-abiding in class and around the Marauders. The rest of the time she's as insane as the rest of us."

Corinna smiled back weakly. Somehow, she had not expected bookish Lily to run off singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from the Wizard of Oz.

They entered the History of Magic classroom just in time. Once again, Sapphire led Sophia and Corinna to the back of the class, directly across the aisle from the Marauders (much to Sophia's discontent). Lily and Dorcas sat closer to the front. Carolyn had not passed her History of Magic test, either, which made it a bit of a wonder that Peter had.

Corinna found herself staring at Professor Binns when he drifted in through the blackboard.

_Eek! ... Ghost!_

After that first disastrous incident with Peeves and Nearly Headless Nick, she had completely avoided the ghosts of Hogwarts, to the extent of running in the opposite direction whenever she spotted one (resulting in her getting lost several times and having to ask the paintings. Though, how exactly a talking, moving, gothic vampire portrait was less frightening to her than a couple-centuries-old, perfectly human ghost was completely beyond her).

_And you asked to be put in Gryffindor ..._ she thought to herself rather wryly.

And now, here before her, was a real, live ghost. _Okay, not alive, but here,_ she admitted to herself.

Then he started talking, and she immediately became less fascinated and disturbed. Somehow, despite the description from the books, she'd expected History of Magic to be at least slightly entertaining. She was, after all, interested in regular history, so she had reasoned that magical history must be at least a bit interesting. But Binns's voice was so dry and boring that before long she found her mind wandering, just as it had in Care of Magical Creatures.

She found herself regretting, for the first time, not being able to bring any books from home. It was funny that she had thought so much about home and not once wished that she'd brought books. Of course, there were books here — but they were dry, boring textbooks. Nothing she'd be interested in.

Not that she'd looked in the library a lot, anyway ...

How strange. Back home, her life had centred on books. Most of her free time was spent reading — or writing, or drawing very bad pictures of Dusty. She had friends, but she rarely went to their houses or to the mall, and at school she was almost completely silent except in the library, when she spoke to her few friends.

_I wonder what Mandy's up to right now ..._

Of course, 'right now' wasn't really relevant, was it? She didn't know how time worked between the worlds.

Her gaze, like her mind, wandered around the room and eventually focussed on the Marauders across from her. She noticed that James had his History book open — she doubted very much that he was actually reading it, as his head was turned completely to the side to hold a whispered conversation with Sirius.

But it gave her an idea.

Reaching down into her book-bag, she pulled out her History of Magic textbook and set it on her desk. Professor McGonagall had bought it for her in Diagon Alley — Corinna had decided against going into that particular area of the magical world so soon.

She opened it and began reading.

"_In the year 1812 Napoleon attempted to invade Russia. He failed due to his army being unprepared for the harsh, Russian winters — or so Muggles believe. The actual reason for the downfall of Napoleon was that Russia had employed several 'mercenary' wizards as warriors ..."

* * *

_

"Hey," Sirius nudged Peter and nodded towards the new girl across the aisle. "She was just watching us."

She had actually only been sort of staring in their direction, eyes glazed and unfocussed. She was probably bored to death. But Sirius most definitely was not going to tell Peter that.

The boy in question jumped and looked around at her. "R-really?" His voice squeaked and James elbowed him in warning. Professor Binns, of course, didn't look up. Neither did anyone else.

Sirius grinned at him. "Yep. She loves you, Pete." James winked at him over Peter's head.

Peter tried to glare at him, a flush spreading up his neck and face. "Shut ... just shut up," he muttered.

"Enough," said Remus tiredly. "Leave him alone."

Sirius glanced over at him. "Moony! Are you actually taking down notes?"

"Yes, actually, I am. I'd like to pass this class."

"Ah, well ..." Sirius leaned back in his chair, setting his head in his arms. "I'm sure we all will. Except maybe Wormtail." He grinned and winked at the boy to show he was only joking, but Peter wasn't even looking his way. He was scowling at the blank parchment he was supposed to be writing notes on.

Remus ignored him and continued to scribble down the Professor's words.

The bell rang, startling everyone. "... and for homework next day, class, please give me notes on reasons why or why not you think it is morally correct for wizards to offer to help Muggles in their wars ..."

James smiled widely as he hoisted his book-bag onto his shoulders. "Excellent! Supper and pranks await!"

* * *

**A/N: **Arrgh... Not much change to this one. Just a bunch of chapters earlier. Yep, I've got everything closer together, move it along faster ... the old version was so slow ...  



	6. Pranks

**A/N:** This one's a bit shorter. Er ... a lot shorter.**  
**

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* * *

Chapter Six: Pranks**

Corinna jumped as she heard the bell ring, signalling the class's end. _Is class over already? I must have spent more time than I thought daydreaming ..._

"Come on, hurry up, I don't want to be late for supper," Sophia told her, standing in the doorway with Sapphire. Corinna hurried to grab her books. She still wasn't sure what Sophia thought about her — there was something unsettling about the girl.

They made their way down to the Great Hall much quicker than Corinna would have gone by herself. They took several confusing turns and went down moving staircases, worrying Corinna to no end and ending up with her extremely lost. Thankfully, Sapphire and Sophia seemed to know exactly what they were doing and where they were going.

"Thank God it's over!" gasped Dorcas, pulling out a seat across from them. Corinna hovered, uncertain. Did they expect her to sit with them?

"Come. Sit." commanded Sapphire, patting the spot next to her. Corinna smiled inwardly. _Guess that answers that question._

None of them noticed the four boys watching her every movement.

* * *

"Right," said James, "Okay, Peter, remember — you have to set off the fireworks at the exact same moment Sirius and I say the spell. We'll do that when Moony gives us the signal. Remus — you know what you have to do."

It was almost an hour later, and supper was well underway. Everyone was seated in the Great Hall, even the late stragglers.

"So do I," said Peter, a bit indignantly.

"I know, I know," James waved off the comment airily. "But anyway. Let's go!"

Remus shook his head and smiled as he stood. _Not the kindest thing to do, I suppose. But it is the 'Hogwarts Welcome' for exchange students..._

He frowned, steps stilling. Actually, he couldn't remember any other exchange students at all. He couldn't remember reading about any in 'Hogwarts: A History' either. In fact, if he was remembering properly, it quite clearly stated that Hogwarts didn't accept exchange students at all ...

He shook his head. Now was not the time to be wondering about where Corinna came from. He had a role to play.

"Hello," he said pleasantly to the group of girls.

"What do you want?" growled Sophia, rather suspiciously.

"Actually, I wanted to know if you've ever been to England before." he said, looking at Corinna. The silver-haired girl blinked at him.

"Um ... no."

"Then have you ever tried any of our excellent, unique dishes?" He held forth a bowl.

* * *

Corinna stared down at the bowl, a bit suspiciously. "What is it?"

Remus smiled at her disarmingly. Actually, it was a bit creepy.

"Black pudding."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, no-no-no, no thanks." she said quickly.

"Why not?"

"I ... isn't that the one made almost completely with blood?"

His face fell, just a little bit. "Yeah."

Sapphire laughed. "Couldn't get her with that one, Remmy, could you?"

Corinna gave her an odd look. "... 'Remmy'?"

Remus made a face. "An old nickname. Thankfully killed once I got 'Moony'."

Dorcas laughed. "Beware, Remus. It's come back ... come back from the dead ... to haunt you!"

She held up a fork with a piece of barbequed chicken on the end and waved it about in a manner that she no doubt hoped was spooky. In reality, it caused the piece of meat to fall off and land in Sophia's goblet, out of which she was about to take a drink. The resulting splash made her scoot backwards and almost fall off the bench, which made her drop the goblet. It fell on the table and splashed pumpkin juice everywhere.

Corinna jumped up to get away from the spreading stain. Unfortunately, she jumped to far — she let out a sound that sounded like a cross between a shriek and a squeak and fell over backwards.

The girls (except for Lily, although even she was stifling snickers) all started laughing at them, and Remus looked down at Corinna with an amused expression.

"... you alright there?"

Corinna burst out laughing, unable to hold it in any longer.

_Oh, God. I am a complete retard._

Remus held out his hand and she took it, still laughing. He pulled her up and grinned at her widely, a mischievous glint in his eye.

_Wait a minute ..._

Something exploded out of the bowl Remus had been holding, something that looked an awful lot like fireworks. A few students (the younger ones, mostly) screamed — most laughed appreciatively, already guessing that this was the beginning of a 'Marauders' prank.

Then, when the smoke cleared, and the students saw Corinna, everyone roared with laughter.

Suddenly, she wished that she was very, very small. She didn't know what else was in the prank and what was wrong with her, but she was certain it was not very nice for her.

Slowly, she looked down. And stared.

_Well, I suppose it's nice of them to let me see it ..._ she thought distractedly.

Her skin was fuchsia pink, clashing horribly with her bright, flame-orange hair. She was wearing what looked like a turquoise-blue leather biker jacket over a sort of furry, greenish brown bikini.

All in all, she looked horrible.

Corinna froze for a few minutes, expressionless, torn between laughing or crying. She chose the former, as crying would've probably humiliated her more. Besides, it seemed to her that this was a sort of test — the Marauders were probably just trying to see if she was 'Gryffindor' material. Worthy of their attention.

There was nothing in the actual books that would suggest this, but she'd read her fair share of fanfiction, and if the actual canon characters resembled the way they were portrayed on the internet _at all_, she was willing to bet this was a prank with hidden meaning.

So, while trying her best to cover her exposed body with the jacket, she started laughing. A weak, forced laugh, but no one really actually heard it in the general uproar. The half-faked humour on her face she deemed enough to convince anyone looking that she had passed the 'test'.

After a few moments she became aware that not all of the noise around her was laughter.

"You ... _prats!_ How dare you! And her first day here, too! Way to make a good impression on witches and wizards from other schools!"

Lily was literally screaming at James and the others. None of them could stop their laughter, although James was making a noticeable effort.

And she wasn't the only student to find their prank to be unamusing. Sophia was standing up and glaring at the Marauders openly. Actually, when Corinna looked closer, she saw that the girl was staring especially at Sirius.

"You ... _asshole!_ YOU BLOODY JERK! That was underhanded, stupid, immature ... you ..." Apparently unable to find words sufficient enough to describe him, Sophia took out her wand. She muttered something that Corinna couldn't hear and pointed it at Sirius.

A moment later, Corinna's forced laughter became real as she saw that Sirius apparently had the same spell done to him, complete with sickly-coloured bikini and skin.

The rest of the student population found this beyond hilarious. Several were rolling on the floor in laughter. Remus was staring at Sophia in shock and admiration, while James and Peter were almost crying with mirth.

Corinna noticed something, through her hilarity. _What_ _about the teachers? Shouldn't they be doing something about all this?_

She glanced towards the staff table and was both surprised and amused to see that no one appeared to be very concerned. Dumbledore was talking to a very short man (whom she guessed was Professor Flitwick) and the rest of the teachers were all grinning, apparently very happy to see Sirius get a taste of his own medicine. Professor Janko, now with bright orange hair to match Corinna's, was rolling on the floor laughing. The only one who appeared not to find it amusing was Professor McGonagall — her face was pulled into a disapproving frown and her gaze was fixed on the Marauders. Corinna was certain there was a detention in store for them, although Sophia, judging by the glimmer of laughter in the professor's eyes as she glanced at the girl, was likely to be let off lightly.

Lily took a deep breath, and amusement glittered in her eyes as she glanced at Sirius. Then, with a huff, she turned on her heel and walked up to Corinna.

"Come on. Up to our room, let's go. I'll see if I can do something about it."

Corinna followed her towards the doors of the Great Hall, glancing back once. Sapphire had got up to follow them, face bright with laughter, while her other dorm-mates were all laughing as hard as they could. Even Sophia looked amused as she surveyed Sirius with a certain amount of satisfaction.

Lily beckoned to her again and Corinna left with her, Sapphire close behind.

* * *

"_Serwan."_

_Serwan bowed her head in respect towards the Macla in the mirror. "Milady."_

"_I have news for you — according to our scientists, there will be a pattern between Tooth and Tooth-tip. Broaden your search — look across worlds and time, watch for the spark of Power. But also look for a pattern in your journeying — likely, all clues you find will point to one world, one time."_

"_I will do what I can, milady," said Serwan._

_The Macla smiled. "Good, good. Journey well, child. You will find the Tooth-tip, of this I am certain."_

_Serwan nodded again, and cut the connection with a murmured farewell. Once more, she turned her mirror to scan the ages of this world. At last, able to affirm with utmost certainty that the Tooth-piece was nowhere to be found here, she shut and stowed the mirror._

_Lifting her hands, she spoke words of Power. A moment later, she was gone from that world, and on to the next.

* * *

_

**A/N:** Arrgh. Sorry about the lameness of the prank --- I can't think any up. :) Feel free to leave suggestions.


	7. The Trouble With Pranks

**A/N:** Huh ... well, so ... I know it says on my profile that I love this story too much to abandon it. Guess I lied. Erheh ... well, it appears I don't have much love from reviewers, anyway, so hopefully this isn't too much of a disappointment. But I'm writing Tactical Divisions and Thirteen Worlds now ... and they kind of screw up this fic. However, I'm going to post this and the next chapter, and maybe ... someday I'll get around to chapter nine.

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* * *

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**Chapter Seven: The Trouble with Pranks**

When they reached the Gryffindor Tower, Sapphire was still laughing. By now, Corinna was getting a bit annoyed.

"Will you be quiet?" she finally asked, in as polite a tone as she could manage.

The Fat Lady had given her an odd look as they gave her the password, but thankfully she refrained from saying anything.

"Right. Sorry," said Sapphire, looking properly chastised. But her eyes still glimmered with mirth.

Lily led them up to their dorm rooms.

"Right," she said, "I'm going to see what I can do about this ..."

She took out her wand with a business-like sort of flourish.

"Finite Incatatem!"

Nothing happened. Lily sighed and dropped her hand. "Well, I didn't really think that a charm from the 'Mighty Marauders' would be dis-spelled so easily ..."

But she did not appear to be discouraged. She raised her wand-arm again and recited several words in what sounded like Latin.

There was a flash of white light and Corinna flinched in shock. When her gaze cleared again, she glanced down at herself.

"Did it work?"

Lily shook her head. "Well, not in the way you mean. It accomplished what I wanted it to — this charm tells me what sort of spell it is."

"And I'm sure that it's way above NEWT-level ..." muttered Sapphire, sitting on the bed beside Corinna's. Lily ignored her.

"... and it appears that it isn't a charm at all, that Potter and the others used. They transfigured each skin and hair cell so that they are that ghastly colour, and they transfigured your clothes, as well ..."

"Figures," said Sapphire. "James's best subject is Transfiguration. You'd never guess it, the way McGonagall treats him."

"I wouldn't expect her to treat him otherwise!" Lily defended the Transfiguration Professor, "It's immoral to play favourites on students, just because of their marks."

"So ... it's immoral for Flitwick to be all nice and never give you detention, and Slughorn to invite you to all his parties?"

Corinna somehow managed to keep her face straight at the sudden embarrassed flush on Lily's.

"Of course not!" she said loftily, attempting to recover herself. "Anyway, just be quiet. I'm trying to perform a complicated spell here ... and anyway, what have I ever done in Flitwick's class to merit a detention?"

"Hexing James for calling you 'Friz-Head' after he cursed you with really frizzy hair for the rest of the day?"

"He didn't see that. It wasn't favouritism."

"Poppycock! Of course he saw that — you blasted James with the Bat-Bogey thing right in front of his face!"

"No, I waited until his back was turned!"

Corinna wasn't sure whether to be amused or annoyed at this turn of conversation.

"Um ... guys? A little help here?" She gestured to her still-be-spelled self.

"Oh! Right. Sorry." Lily picked up her wand and muttered another phrase.

Again, nothing happened. Lily relaxed for a moment and shook her head.

"Wow. They really did a good job on it."

Sapphire laughed. "Ooh, Lily, willing to admit Potter's done a good job on something? The world's ending!"

"Oh, dry up ..."

Corinna sighed. _This is going to be a long night ...

* * *

_

Remus had to admit that Sophia's spell was nothing short of fantastic. Of course, seeing as both her and Lily had long since found a charm that allowed them to cause the Marauders' pranks to rebound, it wasn't very surprising. This wasn't the first time something along these lines had happened.

But it was still pretty funny.

"Ah, shit man!" complained Sirius as they exited the Great Hall to gales of laughter. "... do any of you remember the counter-spell?"

James, doubled over with laughter, shook his head. Peter squeaked a quick no between his giggles.

Sirius looked over at Remus desperately.

"Please? Come on, Moony ... I don't wanna go around like this for a long time ..."

Remus shrugged. "I don't know. You could always just go look it up in the library."

Sirius frowned. "Library? I think not. Madam Pince would kick me out in a second!"

James wheezed something out.

"What was that?" Sirius turned to his best friend, confused.

"Maybe ... she'll let you in ... to get ... a good view ... of ... your chest!" He collapsed into laughter. Sirius suddenly went very, very pale.

Remus rolled his eyes. "I'm quite certain Madam Pince is not in any way inclined to stare at other girls' chests. Stop terrifying Padfoot, James."

"I'm not a girl!" squawked Sirius indignantly. "I just ... look like one!"

"Come on," said Peter, "Let's just ... go up to the Common Room. Maybe ... maybe we can ask the girls how they got rid of it?"

He quailed as three pairs of incredulous eyes turned on him.

"Or ... maybe not?"

"Idiot," muttered Sirius. Peter looked at the ground, embarrassed.

"Just a suggestion ..."

"Well, let's go to the Tower anyway." said Remus.

"Yeah ... and Prongs, will you _shut up_ already?!"

* * *

In the girls' dorms, things were not going well. Although Lily and Sapphire had finally stopped arguing, they could not find any solutions.

"Arrrgh! There isn't a single spell in here that will get rid of it!" Lily slammed the book down on the bed in frustration.

Corinna groaned and lay back on her bed.

"Don't worry!" said Sapphire brightly. "We can always ... make up a spell."

"No!" Corinna nearly shouted the word. She bolted upright, stepping quickly back from the witch. "Nonono ... no one's using experimental charms on me ..."

Lily laughed gleefully. "See? I'm not the only one scared of your experiments!"

Sapphire looked a bit put out. "Well ... sorry. Sue me for trying to help, why don't you."

"Will do!" Lily said to her cheerfully. Corinna glanced uneasily at her.

"Well ..."

"Well."

For a moment the three were silent, pondering solutions to their predicament. Corinna found herself fiddling with the Tooth again. She had taken to giving it a capital in her thoughts, now. And she really fiddled with it a lot, didn't she? She supposed it was because it was her only connection to home, other than Dusty. Or maybe it was because this thing had brought her here. She needed to touch it, feel it, to remember that this was all real and not a dream.

_Or a nightmare._

She shuddered slightly, then glanced at the others to see if they'd noticed. They hadn't.

_I wonder ... since the Tooth is so powerful ... could it help me with this?_

As soon as she had thought it, she rebuked herself. _Stupid! This thing is powerful, unpredictable. To use it just for a mere prank ..._

"Fine."

Corinna jumped at Sapphire's voice. "What?"

"I said, fine. If you don't want me to use an experimental spell on you, I won't."

Corinna blinked at her. She turned to Lily.

The other girl was staring at Sapphire with a strange expression — something between resign and interest. It was a very difficult sort of expression to master, and gave her a vaguely twisted look about the face.

"You've ... thought of a spell?" said Lily.

Sapphire nodded, smiling.

"Um ..."

"Would you be willing to have me try? Please? Please? I'm sure it will work!" Sapphire knelt down and held her hands up in a praying position. "I'm begging you here, 'Rinna."

Corinna stared.

_No, no, no! We'll think of something else!_ she screamed inside her head. There was no way she was going to risk it.

_Heh. Some Gryffindor ..._

But, well ... she did want it gone. Hypothetically, she _could_ walk around all the next day like this, wearing more clothes over top. But she'd really rather be able to go to sleep in something else ... could she change out of it, she wondered?

_Even if I could ... what about the skin? _

Maybe she should try it. After all — she remembered this with a jolt — she _did_ have the Tooth. It had helped her today. Maybe it would protect her if anything went wrong ... ?

_Well ... may as well risk it ..._

Corinna sighed, trying to shake off the dreadful feeling that she would regret this. "Alright. Let's see what you can do ..."

Sapphire jumped up, a huge smile on her face. "Really? Yay!"

Without further ado, she pulled out her wand and muttered something. Corinna stifled a scream as a flash of white fire struck her.

_Oh god oh god ..._

When nothing else happened for a moment, she squeezed open one eye and peered down at herself.

She blinked.

"It's gone!"

"But of course," sniffed Sapphire, pretending to take insult. "My spells always work!"

Lily laughed. "Except for the badger incident?"

Sapphire chose to ignore her. Corinna was intrigued. "Badger incident? What's this?"

"Ignore her, she doesn't know what she's talking about," said Sapphire, shooting a glare at Lily.

The red-head laughed again. "Dorcas will tell you."

"Well, whatever. I'm glad you fixed me up. Thanks,"

Sapphire grinned. "You're welcome! I'm betting you're a right sight better than Sirius ... I'll laugh so hard if he's stuck like that for tomorrow."

"... Don't they have a counter-spell, or something?"

Lily snorted. "I doubt it. Even if they do, it's not going away that easily. After all, Sapphire made that spell up for Sophia and I, _precisely_ to ensure the Marauders get worse than they give."

"And that time, you actually _asked_ for the spell."

"And it worked. For once."

Corinna smiled. _Magic ..._. Didn't it make the world so much more interesting? But a question was niggling at the back of her mind. One that had no great importance to anything much, but one that interested her nonetheless ...

"Why did Sophia only go after Sirius? Why did she leave the rest of the Marauders unscathed?"

The mirth suddenly disappeared from her dorm-mates. Lily and Sapphire exchanged an uneasy glance.

"Well ..." said Lily at last, carefully. "She has a bit of a ... vendetta against Black. A bit like Potter and I — well, actually, not really."

Sapphire's expression twitched as she fought a smirk off her face. Lily was glaring at her. Corinna blinked at them both, and Sapphire elaborated.

"She hates him."

Corinna waited for more. When it was clear neither was going to expand, she pressed. "Well? Why does she hate him?"

Lily looked at Sapphire, who bit her lip with a — was it _guilty?_ — look on her face.

"It's ... not really my place to tell," Sapphire said at last. "Suffice to say, I was a bit of an ass and screwed things up royally."

"O-kay ..."

"Yeah ..."

There was an awkward silence for a moment.

"Well!" began Sapphire, suddenly cheery. "Do y — "

All three of them jumped as the dormitory door was thrown open. Dorcas and Carolyn nearly fell in, they were laughing so hard. Sophia followed, her expression and bearing so cold she almost froze the room when she walked in.

"That was —" gasped Carolyn between giggles, "— the greatest — thing — ever!"

Dorcas evidently agreed. "No offense, but — the look on your face — was — priceless!"

Corinna's stomach suddenly dropped. Had she really looked so foolish, standing there? Had her face betrayed how horrible she felt?

"Shut up," said Lily, suddenly chastising. Corinna glanced at her, surprised. "It wasn't that funny — rather immature, really ..."

"Yes," said Sophia, and her voice was so cold that every turned to her, suddenly remembering she was there. "Haven't they done a prank like this every first day at Hogwarts? It's getting rather repetitive."

"You'd think they could come up with new ones," laughed Sapphire. "And figure out how to get rid of yours and Lily's copy-spells."

The girls gradually calmed down.

"Ah, yeah," said Carolyn at last. "It's been awhile since I've laughed like that."

"It wasn't even that funny," pondered Sapphire. "I suppose it's just because we haven't had enough humour lately."

"Not enough Marauders in this world," said Dorcas, smiling.

"Not enough reasons to laugh, with this war." said Lily quietly.

Suddenly, the mood in the room was very sober indeed. Corinna shivered — it was impossible not to notice the fear in the atmosphere. She reached up to grasp the Tooth beneath her shirt, seeking reassurance.

She felt eyes on her and looked up to meet Sophia's gaze. The girl was frowning slightly, in suspicion. She looked almost as though she were going to say something, a question ... but instead she turned away and studied one of the walls.

"Tell me," began Corinna suddenly, and everyone's eyes turned to her. "This war. I'm not really sure what it's all about. No one told me ... no one seemed to talk about it, much."

She hoped to God that this was true and the war was not talked about much. She was taking an awful risk, but it was a necessary one — better to get weird looks for knowing too little than for knowing too much. She had to know what was going on.

Thankfully, it appeared she was correct. "Well ... no one else knows much, either." said Sapphire, at last. "All we know is ... well, there's some freak going around killing muggles and muggle-borns."

"And he has a ton of followers." added Dorcas.

"... what's his name?"

There was a long pause as the girls exchanged looks and searched for words. At last, Lily spoke.

"No one calls him by name. It's ... a 'speak of the devil' sort of theory."

"Everyone just calls him 'He Who Must Not Be Named', or 'You-Know-Who'" added Sapphire.

"In fact, I don't even know what his real name is." said Carolyn thoughtfully.

Sophia had been silent throughout this. But now she spoke. "It's Voldemort. His name, the name he has given to the press, is Voldemort. But surely you know this? Don't you get the newspaper?"

Corinna tried very hard not to swallow nervously. "Well ... no. We ... yeah, just no. I thought I'd get caught up on it all when I got to school ... I didn't think it was too important. Neither did my Mom. She wasn't really paying attention to much, this summer, what with Dad and everything."

Now she allowed herself to swallow, and to look down. It struck her almost as funny, then, how she was able to use emotion so manipulatively in her lies. She struggled to hold in a strange, wild impulse to laugh.

Sophia quickly backed off, believing she was treading on tender ground, here. "Of course," she said quickly. "I understand."

_Even you,_ thought Corinna, rather impressed with herself, _even you, Sophia, are fooled by me. Even you will back off 'forbidden' territory and respect my feelings._

There was an awkward feel to the air, now. None of the girls were sure of what to do or say.

"Anyway ..." said Dorcas, finally, awkwardly. "How do you think the boys are getting along?"

* * *

Sirius spouted several swear-words at Remus after their twelfth attempt failed with spectacular results.

"Sorry," said Remus through James's gales of laughter (they still hadn't gotten him to shut up). He surveyed the purple gorilla Sirius had become with a certain amount of trepidation. "But ... well, the yellow polka-dots go better with your eyes than orange-brown and hairy ..." He offered a tentative smile.

Then he blinked as Sirius's words registered. "Wait ... did you just tell me to engage in sexual intercourse with a piece of excrement from a female dog?_"_

Jerry opened the door to their dormitory and everyone turned to look at him.

"Hi, Jerry-boy!" said James cheerfully from the floor. Jerry blinked at him, then at the scowling purple primate in a polka-dotted bathing suit.

"Is that ..." He paused and shook his head. "... I'm not gonna ask." He made his way to the bathroom.

_Serwan curled herself up by a stream and blew on the Dream-Mirror. This was the sixth world she'd visited, and still no sign of the Tooth-piece. She was beginning to worry ..._

Still,_ she thought,_ I shouldn't give up hope yet. I may find it ...

* * *

_Her thoughts drifted back to the girl in the story as her body went through the necessary movements to search for the Tooth-piece._ _How horrible, to be trapped in a world that wasn't hers. She felt the beginnings of that terrible guilt twinging in the back of her mind._

_She was not the first of her kind to lead a person from one world to another. In fact, hadn't there even been an instance where the great Macla herself, in her adolescence, of course, had led a human astray with her Tooth? It was to that very same world, where Corinna was now, wasn't it?_

_As she closed up the Mirror, having yet again found nothing, Serwan decided she would ask the Macla next chance she could.

* * *

_

**A/N:** Yeah, okay, not much to say. Just, if you want to know more about Sapphire and the other OCs in this story ... and you know Yuu Yuu Hakusho, Inuyasha and (later on) Naruto, come check out my new, soon-to-be-posted story Tactical Divisions. It's a crossover set in the Marauders time ... should be fun, neh? It's part of the reason I'm quitting this fic for the time being. It has too many spoilers for this and I have tons of inspiration for it, and ... yeah. 


	8. Lovegood and Duels

**A/N: **Alright, so there's somewhere in here that will seem a bit repetitive. My apologies, I wrote this chapter before I revised it all. The first part of the first version of the Maclan's Tooth was written before the Half Blood Prince, so I never put in anything about her going "GAAAH DUMBLEDORE IS DEAD" ... I put it in this chapter. So, sorry if it's kind of repetitive ... erheh ... yeah.

**

* * *

**

Chapter Eight: Lovegood and Duels

The next day, their first class was Herbology, with the Ravenclaws. There were no remarkable incidents at breakfast-time, although Corinna was startled by the owls. Somehow, she had missed them the day before.

Professor Sprout was a plump, energetic young woman, eager to do the best she could. After her introduction and outline of the year, she nervously announced that all the year's projects were to be done in pairs pre-decided. She then proceeded to read off the list she'd made and asked them to go to their partners.

"... Summersby, Lupin. White, Potter. Meadows, Robertson. Evans, Prewitt. Green, Carlston. Miller, Black. Strelar, Pettigrew ..."

Corinna's eyes widened as she heard her partner. _Pettigrew? As in, Peter? Uh-oh ..._

She swallowed, shook herself. _Okay. Calm. He's not a half-arsed Death Eater in this time. He's ... a loyal friend. A bit misguided, perhaps, and a bit slow. But still loyal._

_And Sapphire says he has a crush on me. Oh, God._

oooo

Peter squeaked and went bright red when the professor read off the list. "James," he whispered, tugging on the other boy's sleeve. "James did you hear that?"

James wasn't listening. He was glaring across the room at Fabian Prewitt, who was chatting animatedly with Lily, his partner.

"That ... no-good bastard ... damn him ... getting Lily for a partner ..." he muttered under his breath.

Sirius wasn't in the mood to laugh at him. He and Remus exchanged looks — Sirius's apprehensive, Remus's blank.

"Damn it," growled Sirius, "I'm stuck with that bitch."

_Rose_. Whenever Remus thought about her, he felt something strange jolt through his chest. _Stop it,_ he told himself. _You broke up with her. Not the other way around._

_I just did it before she did, I just did it because I had to._

He tried desperately to ignore these whispers of thought in the back of his mind.

"Don't call her a bitch," he said tiredly to Sirius. "Just ... try not to do anything you'll regret."

"I won't," said Sirius, making his way over to where Rose sat, white, apprehensive, and surrounded by whispering, giggling friends. His smile was threatening.

Remus put a hand on his shoulder. "I meant, Sirius, don't do anything _I'll_ regret you doing."

oooo

Corinna looked at the poor, sweating boy before her. It was a bit unnerving, having someone so anxious, just being in her presence. She'd never met anyone who'd had such an obvious crush on her.

"So ..." she said at last.

_Anything, anything but this horrible, awkward, creepy silence!_ she thought to herself.

"Yeah ... um." He swallowed nervously. She could almost _hear_ him searching for something to say.

She took pity on him.

"Do you know what we're supposed to do next?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No. Just ... sit here, I guess. And talk." He tried for a smile, but it was so tentative that it looked more like a meek baring of teeth.

She sighed.

_This is going to be a long day ..._

oooo

"Well," said Remus to Sophia, trying to distract himself from thoughts of Rose. "How have things been going?"

"Good," replied the girl in a disinterested voice. She continued reading the little booklet. They lapsed into silence.

He tried again. "... Did you get rid of that spell, last night?"

She slowly looked up at him. Her gaze flicked to Corinna, then back to him. He laughed, nervously. "Well, I can see that you did. But ... I was rather wondering ... how did you do it, exactly?"

"Much the same way you did, I expect."

"Ah."

Remus looked down. He had found the spell in the library, at one o'clock in the morning with Peter, Sirius, and James. None of them had got much sleep last night. And he was feeling tired already, because the full moon was tomorrow night ...

"That's interesting ... what are you reading?" he asked.

"The course outline booklet."

He let out a sigh. _This is going to be a long day ..._

oooo

Sirius glared at his partner.

Rose attempted a smile. "Um ... hello, Sirius."

He grunted.

"Er ... right. So, shall we get started reading the instruction booklet?"

He grunted again.

She gave him a worried look and opened the booklet. She squeaked slightly when his head smashed down onto the table.

"Are you alright?" she asked hesitantly.

He looked up at her blearily. _Stuck with this ... bitch ... for a partner ..._

He let his head drop down again onto the table.

_This is going to be a long day ..._

oooo

Sapphire plopped down in a chair next to Jerry. "Hey-o boy." she said tiredly.

He grinned. "Not too happy with your choice of partner?"

"Hell no," she joked. "Green? God, man, I hate that guy ... ah, nah. I'm just pissed off I didn't get someone else."

"Who?" He was interested. And still grinning, wanting to have an excuse to tease her.

"Never you mind," she said, flapping a hand at him. "One of my friends is with him ..."

He scanned the room. "You're certainly not jealous of Carolyn?"

She looked across the room to see her laughing and flirting with her partner. "What? With Potter? Sorry, I'm not James's type."

"Then ... perhaps Dorcas?"

"She's with Ami, you twat. I said 'him'."

"So it's Black you want, is it?"

"No ..."

Jerry looked around the room. He put a hand to his mouth in a mock-gasp.

"What! But then ... you like _Pettigrew,_ Carlston? Wow."

She sat bolt upright. "What? You pervert! Eww! Of course not! That's disgusting!"

_Poor Corinna,_ she thought to herself glancing over at Peter's partner. She didn't look too happy to be stuck with him ...

"Then it's Fabian, I guess."

She jerked around and glared at him, cheeks heating. His grin grew wider. "It is, isn't it! You like — "

She covered his mouth with both of her hands, face red. "Shut the hell up!"

He moved away from her hands and sat, laughing. "Yo-ou like him!" he called out gleefully, like a little kid.

She gave up trying to silence him and put her head in her hands.

_This is going to be a long day ..._

oooo

Herbology was, thankfully, over twenty minutes later, most of the lesson time being taken up by the Professor talking.

Transfiguration was next. Sapphire and Carolyn separated from Corinna and the others before they reached the castle.

"Got an A on the OWLs," Sapphire told Corinna with a rueful grimace. "I knew I should have studied more."

Corinna grinned. "Hey, you got a free period. Be happy."

Carolyn whooped. "Yeah, I'd almost forgotten that! Yay! Yee-_haw!"_

She bounded up the school steps with renewed energy. Sapphire followed, less enthusiastically, and Lily sniffed in disapproval.

Corinna looked at her.

"Carolyn does horribly in school," Lily told her. "But she's really quite brilliant. She just ... saves all her brains for boys and make-up. I really wish she'd try harder in her studies ..."

Corinna smiled, a little sadly. How many times had she heard people say things like that about her friends, especially Jacklyn? She, herself, had always had good marks. Occasionally her parents said she 'could've done better' on a test or something, but most of the time she was in their high regard. Jacklyn had complained to her many a time how annoying it was to have people talk like that.

"_It annoys me," _she told Corinna once, _"To have people always thinking I'm smarter than I really am. They're just waiting for me to do an Einstein and turn out to be a genius ... when really, I'm just dumb."_

Corinna had tried to comfort her. _"Well, you're not really."_

"_Yeah, and why do you say that?"_

"_Well ... you knew that Einstein did bad in school ..."_

Corinna blinked. They'd reached the Transfiguration classroom. She'd been blindly following Lily, Dorcas, and Sophia, and was rather startled to suddenly find herself seated in a desk.

Lily sat near the front with Dorcas, and Corinna had followed Sophia to the back left corner.

Professor McGonagall entered the room. "Good morning students. I trust that this year ..."

And, like all the teachers before her, she went on to give a lengthy lecture on how she expected them to work hard and get high marks for the final exams.

oooo

Sapphire separated with Carolyn shortly after they entered the school.

"I'm gonna get started on that History thing," she told the other girl, who laughed and rolled her eyes.

"Wow. A free period, and you're doing _schoolwork_? I think Lily's finally gotten to you."

"Hey, more free time afterwards. What're you going to do, then?"

"Go up to the dormitories and _sleep_."

Sapphire grinned. "You do that. Of course, for all you know, there could be some hot guys in the library ..."

Carolyn wrinkled her nose. "If they're in the library they're either in class or a nerd. No thanks."

"Suit yourself."

They parted ways.

* * *

As Sapphire walked down the hallways to the library, she started humming. Today, she decided, was a very good day. Henceforth she would look forward to Tuesdays — and why not, when she got a free period? 

She paused by a tapestry which she knew for a fact hid a secret passageway leading directly to the library. Being in the same year as the Marauders had its effects on her.

_Hhm ... should I take a short-cut today, I wonder?_

A muffled thump and a grunt of pain spurred her to pull aside the tapestry and enter, if only to find out what was going on.

She stepped into the brightly lit passageway to find a fair-haired boy about her age being held between two others. Another couple of boys were taking turns punching him, and two girls stood on the sidelines, watching in satisfaction.

Righteous indignation prompted her to open her mouth.

"What ..." she began, then quickly shut up as they all turned to look at her.

_Oops._

All five of the boys were bigger, taller, and stronger than her. She thought she could recognise two of them as the Beaters on the Slytherin Quidditch team, and one of the others was a Year Seven Ravenclaw.

Another girl might have been daunted by their size and left without a backward glance. But Sapphire was true Gryffindor material, and there was absolutely no way that she was going to stand by and let someone get bullied.

"Oi!" she shouted, dropping her bags and plunging her hand into her robes in search of her wand. "You — drop him! Let him go!"

She glowered as the boys exchanged amused looks and glanced toward the girls. One of them, a pale, pretty Seventh Year that Sapphire knew as Narcissa spoke up.

"And what right do you, exactly, have to ... order us about?"

"About as much right as you have to beat on him!"

Sapphire's brain registered that the sentence didn't make much sense as an insult, but she was too busy to be bothered with that right now.

Algerbery (for that was the other girl) laughed. "We _do_ have a right to beat him. He has paid Narcissa here a grievous insult. We are merely teaching him to speak more respectfully to his elders and betters."

"What, called her a stuck-up bitch? That's not an insult, it's fact."

As Algerbery's face darkened in anger, the boy lifted his head. "Actually," he said in a surprisingly bright and unconcerned voice, "I told her to shut up and stop making fun of my magazine."

Sapphire looked at him in surprise. There was a swelling beginning under his eye, and there were a few spots of blood on his robe, but he was smiling cheerfully. He bobbed his head to her, and one of the boys punched him in the stomach. He doubled over in pain, but looked up and gave her a wink the moment the others looked away. He didn't seem unduly concerned

She wondered if maybe they'd hit him on the head one too many times. _Or ... perhaps he just likes pain?_

"Your magazine's stupid," hissed Algerbery to the boy before whipping around to face Sapphire again.

"You're stupid," retorted Sapphire rather childishly.

Narcissa's gaze flicked between the two of them. "Both of you, shut up," she said at last, bored. "Let's go. Our work here is finished."

She examined her nails before pushing back the tapestry and sweeping off down the hallway. After a moment of hesitation, the boys and Algerbery followed. Algerbery gave Sapphire a push as she passed by and a glare of warning.

Sapphire made a face at their backs as the tapestry swung back into place, then turned around to see the boy slowly picking himself up from where the others had dropped him.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked, walking over to him and bending to help him up. He smiled up at her, wincing slightly.

"As well as can be expected." He held out a hand. "Quince Lovegood. Thanks for helping me out."

She laughed and shook it. "Sapphire Carlston. You're welcome." She eyed him curiously as he stretched and looked himself over for broken bones. "You know, not many guys would thank a girl for helping them out."

He looked up at her. "I was getting the shit beaten out of me. Why wouldn't I be grateful that you stopped them?"

"Well ... pride?"

He grinned. "I'm Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor, all puffed up full of pride and courage, obsessed with my overly large ego and reputation."

"Hey!" she held up a warning finger playfully. "I'm Gryffindor. Careful how you talk about my fellow Gryffs, my dear Raven."

He laughed and began to make his way towards the tapestry. "Well. Thanks again. I think I'll ... actually, I think I'll head to the hospital wing."

Before he reached the tapestry, though, he stumbled. Sapphire raced forward to catch him and helped him back up.

"Whoa ... okay, maybe I should help you there."

He winced. "Yeah ... maybe. It wounds my ego to admit it, though."

"I thought you weren't 'puffed full of pride and courage'?" she asked as she helped him through the tapestry-door.

"All males have some ego to be wounded." he informed her loftily as they travelled down the halls, him leaning on her.

She laughed again, finding herself liking him more and more as they walked. Here was a guy that had a sense of humour, and style. Sure, he was a bit odd, with his too-small glasses perched on his nose at such an angle that he couldn't possibly see through them, and his ink-spotted hands. Not to mention his oddly dance-like gait, though that could have been a result of the beating.

"So, what's this magazine? Got a title?" she asked.

"No, I don't have a title yet — that's not really important until later on, though. It's about many animals that have not been properly documented — Nigglers (?), fire-breathing horses ... stuff like that. Some people don't think they exist, there's so little information about them."

_And ... just a little bit dotty,_ she decided. Oh well, it wasn't her place to tell him what to believe and what not to.

"That's it? Just the animals? What about conspiracy theories?" Okay, so maybe she was poking a bit of fun at him. But she wasn't being cruel or anything, so it didn't really matter, right?

He nodded, looking quite serious — a bit hard to believe on his seemingly always-smiling face.

"Yes, I could speak about some of the things our Ministry has been getting up to ... did you know that there is a group in the Department of Mysteries that is cooking up ways to force people to abandon their souls?"

"Really?" she asked. She wasn't even just being sceptical — she merely wondered where he came up with these ideas, and whether they were true or what.

"Yes. It's true. It makes them follow the Minister's every whim. And I," he said, beginning to sound quite righteous as they made their way slowly down a spiral staircase (although the effect was spoiled slightly by the echo), "for one, am not going to stand by while he enslaves the entire wizarding community.

He looked at her, and she at him, and his face was so blank that she wasn't sure if he was joking or not.

"No kidding." she said in a noncommital sort of way. She decided to change the subject. "Well. Shouldn't you be in class right now?"

"Shouldn't you?" he countered. The easy smile was back on his face — it seemed he could never keep it away for long.

"Nope. Got a free period."

"Ah. So do I."

They had reached the Hospital Wing. "I think I'll be fine from here, thank you." he said to her, taking his arm from her shoulders.

"You're welcome," she smiled, "See you later. Try not to offend Narcy dear anymore — maybe those goons will stay away."

"I will take your advice to heart," he informed her solemnly, then gave her a last sparkling smile before entering the Hospital Wing.

She went off down the hall toward the library whistling.

oooo

_I hate Defense Against the Dark Arts,_ decided Corinna as she and the others walked into the classroom silently. She avoided looking at the professor's desk, where she knew _he_ — Macnair — sat.

The bell rang again, signalling that class was beginning, and Macnair slammed the door shut on the latecomers (Sapphire and Peter among them).

"Welcome, yet again, to Defense Against the Dark Arts." he said, leaning his hands against the desk in front of him. It's occupant, Dorcas, shrank back slightly.

"Today we will be partnering up and starting with duels. I want to see how far along you are."

There was a muffled banging on the door. The students looked uneasily at each other, but the professor ignored it.

"As we are trying to instigate House Unity, all partners will be crossed houses. This means, most likely, that you are not going to end up with your friends." There were a few groans at that, but a single glance from Macnair quelled all. "Therefore," he continued, "The partners go as follows: Algerbery, Carlston. Nott, Potter. Snape, Strelar ..."

Corinna felt herself freeze. _Snape? I'm going with Snape?!_ She knew that in the future, Snape was an expert dueller — and she had good reason to think he was pretty good now. _She_, on the other hand, had no idea how to duel. She'd barely even held a wand. The concept of actually doing magic was still new to her! How was she to be expected to cope with such an experienced dueller?

One glance at Macnair's smirking face as he continued reading out the lists told her that she wasn't expected to cope at all.

_This is not good._ She dared to look across at the scowling, greasy-haired boy on the other side of the room and gulped.

No, this was not good at all.

oooo

Remus ducked his partner's spell, barely. He'd been lucky to get one of the more pleasant Slytherins — not like Sapphire, stuck with Algerbery, or Sirius and that huge nineteen-year-old that had failed three times. Although his spells were unlikely to be any good, Remus had a nasty suspicion that Sirius was going to get tackled any moment now.

Not that Sirius couldn't hold his own in a fight. Unlike that poor exchange student, Corinna — she was getting her ass beat into the floor, and Snape wasn't even trying.

That puzzled Remus. He glanced over at her to see her getting up wearily off the floor, one look taking in the frantic, panicked shine in her eyes. She was no dueller, that was easy to see — so why had Professor Macnair paired her up with one of the best duellers in class?

He jumped to the side to avoid a yellow bolt of light and tossed another back which Zabini, his partner, deflected easily with a shield-spell.

_In fact,_ thought Remus, still dwelling on the confusing exchange student, _it appears as though she knows nothing about duelling at all. That can't be right. Her school's curriculum can't be that different from ours._

"Expelliarmus!" Remus was brought back to attention as he went flying backwards, wand leaping out of his hand towards Zabini.

_Damn._

oooo

_Damn._

Corinna leaped desperately to the side to avoid Snape's next spell and crashed into a nearby desk with a resounding bang. Thankfully, there was so much noise from the other duels going on that no one really payed much attention.

She stood up shakily. Snape was giving her one of his famous sneers, and she resisted the urge to smack it off his face.

"Stupid girl ..." she could hear him mutter to himself, "She's hopeless."

"Look," she said as he picked up her wand (which she had dropped) from the floor and gave it to her, "I'm sorry, but I'm not really experienced at duelling."

"That's obvious," he laughed in an altogether unkind way, and she just barely stopped herself from glaring at him outright.

"Perhaps you could ask him for another partner." she said with exaggerated patience.

"I've half a mind to."

"Good, then that's just about your entire mind, it being half the size of most."

_Oh my God. Did I just say that?_

He glared and raised his wand, "You ..."

"Is there a problem?" Macnair's smooth voice interrupted them and Snape immediately dropped his hand.

_Thank God,_ thought Corinna. Then she shook herself mentally.Thank God? It would be better if she started praying for help! Macnair may be a teacher (_professor!_), but he was most certainly worse than Snape could ever be.

_Or maybe not. After all, he wasn't the one to kill Dumbledore, now, was he?_

There was a moment, right after she thought that, where she went completely and suddenly cold. The room and duelling students suddenly seemed distant, and her entire being was focussed on that one sentence.

_... wasn't the one to kill Dumbledore ... kill Dumbledore ..._

She had almost completely forgotten that Dumbledore, like many in the class — including, foremost, James and Lily — were dead in the world she knew.

_Dead? They never existed! They're characters in a story book!_

She felt, suddenly, like sitting down and thinking about life, the universe, and everything. After all, it wasn't every day your entire world was up heaved and thrown on a slant. It wasn't every day you found yourself in a book. She wanted to sit and consider the possibilities of what this could mean, her being here. Certainly, it meant a great deal about the possibility of other worlds and universes ... and how to get there ... and just what _was_ Serwan anyw —

"Ms. Strelar?"

Corinna snapped back to reality at the sound of Macnair's sneering voice. She gulped and blinked up at him.

"Er ... yes?"

She was aware that both Macnair and Snape were staring at her.

"I asked you, is there a problem?" said Macnair again.

"Oh! No. No, sir."

"Good ..." He turned to leave, but Corinna jumped and called out.

"Oh! Wait!"

He turned slowly back to her.

"Yes?"

"Um ... Snape here is really experienced ... and I ... well ... kind of suck. Do you think you could change partners?"

Corinna gulped as he smirked at her. _What in hell possessed me to say that? As if he's going to help me!_

"Actually ..." said Macnair, "I rather think that, seeing as Snape is so experienced, he might be better suited to help you than most others. Indeed, you may stay his partner for the remainder of the term. Then we might think about changing ... in fact ..."

And here he lifted his arm and let off several firecrackers. Everyone looked at him and he raised his voice. "All partners are to be so for the rest of the term, whenever we are duelling. Thank you."

Snape glared at her as the rest of the class groaned.

"Excellent work, Strelar." he hissed. "Now I'm stuck with you for another two _months_."

Corinna felt like sitting and putting her head in her hands, though of course, it being a crowded classroom, she did nothing of the sort.

_Damn, damn, damn ..._

* * *

**A/N:** Yeah, so that's it for ... a very long time, I guess. So sorry! Check out Tactical Divisions! ... when it goes up. And Thirteen Worlds. :) 


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